Meta Can Still Be Sued by Groups Under Data Rules, Says EU Court

Meta Platforms Inc. can still face lawsuits from consumer groups for possible violations of data protection rules, the European Union’s top court said.

The EU’s tough data protection rules that took effect in May 2018 do not prevent “national legislation which allow a consumer protection association to bring legal proceedings,” the EU Court of Justice ruled on Thursday.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, empowered data watchdogs to issue fines of as much as 4% of a company’s annual sales.

The new rules put the regulators in charge of monitoring violations and investigating complaints, and also turned the Irish watchdog overnight into the lead watchdog probing a handful of all powerful U.S. tech firms that have an EU base in the country.

In a dispute between the Federation of German Consumer Organizations and Meta’s Facebook, Germany’s top civil court in 2020 sought the EU tribunal’s guidance on whether lawsuits to protect consumers from Big Tech behaving badly are still possible under GDPR.

The case is: C-319/20, Facebook Ireland Limited v. Bundesverband der Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbaende – Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V.