Meta TikTok Challenge Tech Fees in Second Highest EU Court
Theatre of the confrontation-between-the-worlds of Meta and TikTok versus the gaze of enforcer-regulators in Europe is set high up in the courtroom-levels of conflict with a supervisory fee deemed unduly exorbitant and unfairly calculated. The social media giants have escalated their fight for better tech supervision by challenging the levy in the second-highest court in Europe. Is this the correct price for policing the digital realm, or is this regulatory overreach that stifles innovation? Whichever side answers this question will set the landscape for the future tech regulation in Europe.
Policing the digital world comes with a heavy price. Following the Digital Services Act of 2022, two tech giants and 16 others were presented with a supervisory fee of 0.05% of their global annual net income. This fee funds the European Commission’s oversight so that these digital giants really pay the rules.
Annual fees always perform to a different tune for each company, undulation dictated by the company’s average monthly active users and its financial performance of last year – profit or loss.
Meta sparred with the judges of the EU to contest a giant digital levy. Rather than dodging its dues, in fact, it appeared the tech giant was arguing that the European Commission calculated the fee wrongly, having taken the global revenue of Meta as against revenues of its European subsidiary, the difference in Formula being enough to grossly inflate the bill.
“Meta’s legal team led by Assimakis Komninos confronted a five-judge bench to admit a baffling truth: while the fee was imposed, they could not understand the exact way in which it was calculated.”
Is the Digital Services Act nothing more than the wolf in sheep’s clothing, trying on the garb of law, intent to sec from secrecy, and run an arbitrary and irrational operation?
ByteDance-owned Chinese online social media platform TikTok was equally critical.
“This isn’t justice; it’s daylight robbery disguised as a fee,” TikTok lawyer Bill Batchelor thundered in court. “They’ve conjured numbers from thin air and employed tactics that reek of discrimination.”]]
“This is not about the TikTok bill – this really constitutes highway robbery! The Government wants us to pay for our own platform as well as that of the other party, all while conveniently overlooking the already exorbitant cost.”
This accusation came down like a hammer: The Commission, the charge went, was inflating user figures through an open and blatant double counting scheme. A user switching between phone and laptop was counted twice; it was a discriminatory practice, one that scarcely smelled of cooked books and skewing of data.
He also said regulators had exceeded their legal power by setting the fee cap at the level of group profits.
In a decisive blow to corporate objections, Commission lawyer Lorna Armati stood firm, dismissing arguments and championing the Commission’s method of using group profit as the yardstick for supervisory fees.
“This implies that, since the accounts were consolidated, the considerations should have been made regarding the ability of the provider to tap into the strength of the collective group of companies rather than just that of a single company to satisfy the fee a collective strength which glues the members together against the weight of the financial obligation.”
“Providers were fully informed about the Commission’s methodologies. Claims of a procedural violation or unequal treatment are baseless.”
The Court is expected to issue its ruling next year.
The cases are T-55/24 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission and T-58/24 TikTok Technology v Commission.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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