Meta and TikTok Take Legal Stand Against EUs Supervisory Fees: A Battle Over Fairness and Transparency

Meta Platforms and TikTok have argued that a supervisory fee imposed by the European Union is excessive and founded on an incorrect methodology, as they escalated their conflict with technology regulators to Europe’s second highest judicial authority on Wednesday.

Under the Digital Services Act, enacted in 2022, these two firms, along with 16 others, must pay a supervisory fee equivalent to 0.05 percent of their total annual global net income. This fee is intended to cover the costs incurred by the European Commission in overseeing compliance with the legislation.

The annual fee’s calculation is influenced by factors such as the average monthly active user count for each entity and whether the company showed a profit or loss in the previous financial year.

Meta maintained during the General Court proceedings that it does not seek to evade fulfilling its obligations regarding the fee; however, it challenged the methodology used by the Commission in determining the charge, arguing that it was calculated using the group’s revenue as opposed to that of the subsidiary.

Meta’s representative, Assimakis Komninos, informed the panel of five judges that the company remained unclear about the fee calculation process.

He remarked that the stipulations within the Digital Services Act, or DSA, are «contrary to both the letter and the intent of the law, completely opaque with a ‘black box’ approach, resulting in wholly implausible and ridiculous outcomes.»

The Chinese social media platform TikTok, owned by ByteDance, echoed similar concerns.

«What has transpired here is far from fair or reasonable. The fee has relied on incorrect data and biased methodologies,» TikTok’s lawyer Bill Batchelor asserted in court.

«It inflates the fees TikTok must pay, forcing it to cover not only its own costs but also those of other platforms, neglecting the established fee cap,» he added.

He alleged that the Commission had double-counted users, claiming this to be an unfair practice as users toggling between smartphones and laptops would be counted twice.

Furthermore, he argued that the regulators overstepped their legal authority by setting the fee cap relative to group profits.

In response, Commission attorney Lorna Armati dismissed the concerns raised by both companies, standing by the use of group profits as the basis for calculating the supervisory fee.

«When a group maintains consolidated accounts, it is the aggregate financial resources of that group available to the provider that can be called upon to support the fee,» she stated before the court.

«The providers had ample information to grasp why and how the Commission utilized the figures it did, and there is no issue of violating their right to be heard or claims of unequal treatment,» she remarked.

A ruling from the Court is anticipated next year.

The respective cases are T-55/24 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission and T-58/24 TikTok Technology v Commission.

© Thomson Reuters 2025

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