Meta Platforms Inc suffered a setback on Wednesday after the European Court of General ruled that the European Commission’s requests for information related to its investigation into Facebook’s data and online marketplace were legitimate. The Commission had sought information from Meta, prompting the company to compare the competition enforcer to a fishing super trawler vacuuming up data.
The court found that Meta had not successfully demonstrated that the request for documents went beyond what was necessary or that establishing a virtual data room failed to protect sensitive personal data. Meta said it had handed over more than a million documents since 2019, even as it questioned the necessity and proportionality of the data requests.
Meta can appeal on points of law to the EU Court of Justice, Europe’s highest. The cases are T-451/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission & T-452/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission.