Meta faces setback in EU court over German antitrust agency's decision on Facebook -report
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Meta Platforms' (NASDAQ:META) Facebook has lost its fight at the EU's Court of Justice to overturn the German antitrust regulator's decision which urged for an revamp of the company's business model, Bloomberg News reported.
The EU's top court ruled that Germany's Federal Cartel Office did not breach its powers when in 2019 the competition regulatory agency imposed restrictions on Facebook with respect to processing of user data. The move followed an investigation that simultaneously looked into Facebook's alleged violations of EU's data protection rules, the report added.
The case is being seen as test of how far EU antitrust authorities could go to make sure U.S. companies do not mishandle data gathered from users to maintain their market status, according to the report.
When antitrust agencies are probing at potential abuses of market dominance by companies such as Meta, they can also point to violations of EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU court ruled. In such cases competition agencies must cooperate with other authorities, the report added citing the court.
Meta noted that it was "evaluating" the EU court's ruling "and will have more to say in due course," as per the report.
The company has been facing EU scrutiny in several areas. In May, Meta Ireland was fined $1.3B by Ireland's Data Protection Committee over privacy violations. The month also an EU appeals court rule in favor of a request by the bloc's antitrust regulator for more information about Facebook's marketplace.
The EU's GDPR came in to effect in 2018 and provided data watchdogs fining powers and also made these agencies, the main supervisor for them.
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