The General Court of the European Union dismissed Meta Platforms Ireland’s action against a decision of the European Commission to disclose certain documents in the context of an investigation into possible anticompetitive behaviour in the management of the social network Facebook, in a judgment delivered on Wednesday 24 May (cases T-451/20 and T-452/20).
In May 2020, the Commission adopted a decision (C(2020)3011), amended in December of the same year (C(2020)9321), on the basis of the Regulation (1/2003) on the implementation of the competition rules, which requested Meta Platforms Ireland to provide the Commission with all documents prepared or received by three of its executives during the period concerned which contained one or more of the search terms set out in the annex to that decision. If Meta failed to provide the requested information, it faced a potential daily penalty payment of €8 million.
In its judgment, the General Court finds Meta’s arguments that the application of the search terms specified in the Commission’s request for information results in the identification of numerous documents of no relevance to the investigation, in breach of the principle of necessity laid down in the regulation, to be unfounded. In its view, while the contested decision interfered with the privacy of three Meta executives, it was an appropriate and proportionate measure to achieve the general interest objective of maintaining the system of competition intended by the Treaties.
Secondly, the General Court notes that the Commission had adopted a specific procedure for the processing of documents to be provided by Meta. These documents were to be placed in a virtual data room accessible to a small number of investigators, in the presence of the digital giant’s lawyers, with a view to selecting the documents to be placed on the file.
In the event of continuing disagreement on the classification of a document, the amending decision of December 2020 provides for a dispute-resolution system. Moreover the protected documents may be transmitted to the Commission in a redacted form by removing the names of the persons concerned and any information that would allow their identification. At the request of the Commission, justified by the needs of the investigation, these documents must nevertheless be transmitted to the Commission in a full version.
Referring to the arrangement for transmission, consultation, evaluation and anonymisation of the protected documents, the General Court considers that all the conditions necessary for the possibility of processing sensitive personal data, within the meaning of EU law (Regulations 2016/679 and 2018/725), are fulfilled in the case at hand.
The General Court concludes that the virtual data room procedure does not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the general objectives of the investigation. It ultimately rejects Meta’s claims based on the fundamental right to privacy in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
See the General Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/711 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)