Case C-744/25 P: Appeal brought on 20 November 2025 by European Commission against the judgment of the General Court (First Chamber, Extended Composition) delivered on 10 September 2025 in Case T-55/24, Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission
Date: 2025-11-20
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: administrative supervision, digital single market, social media








C_202600164EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2026/164


12.1.2026






Appeal brought on 20 November 2025 by European Commission against the judgment of the General Court (First Chamber, Extended Composition) delivered on 10 September 2025 in Case T-55/24, Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission


(Case C-744/25 P)

(C/2026/164)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Appellant: European Commission (represented by: P.-J. Loewenthal, O. Gariazzo and L. Armati, acting as Agents)

Other party to the proceedings: Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd

Form of order sought

The appellant claims that the Court should:






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set aside the judgment under appeal;










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make use of its power under the second sentence of the first paragraph of Article 61 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union to give final judgment in case T-55/24 in the form of order sought by the Commission;










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in the alternative, refer the case back to the General Court for consideration of the remaining pleas and arguments;










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order Meta Platforms Ireland to pay the costs of the present proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

The appellant relies on two grounds of appeal.
First, the Commission submits that the General Court, in paragraphs 36 to 55 of the judgment under appeal, misinterpreted Commission Implementing Decision C(2023) 8176 final of 27 November 2023 determining the supervisory fee applicable to Facebook and Instagram pursuant to Article 43(3) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘the contested decision’) by finding that the explanations in the annex to contested decision constitute a methodology for calculating the number of average monthly active recipients in the European Union (‘the AMAR’) of very large online platforms (‘VLOPs’) and of very large online search engines (‘VLOSEs’). In reality, the annex, which the Commission considered necessary to include in the contested decision to fulfil its duty to state reasons, simply explains: (i) the reasons motivating the Commission to rely on ‘other available information’ on AMAR within the meaning of Article 4(2) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1127 (1), instead of on the self-reported AMAR of providers of designated VLOPs and VLOSEs; (ii) the reasons for which the Commission had to rely on several sources of information for that purpose, instead of on one single source; (iii) the sources from which the Commission selected that information; (iv) how the Commission extracted the information from those sources; and (v) how the Commission aggregated that information to arrive at a reliable estimate of each designated service’s AMAR in view of determining the corresponding coefficient (U).
Second, the Commission submits that the General Court, in paragraphs 36 to 55 of the judgment under appeal, misinterpreted and misapplied Articles 43(4) and 87 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (2) by requiring the Commission, if it wishes to rely on ‘other available information’ within the meaning of Article 4(2) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1127 for determining the coefficient (U) of designated services for the purposes of setting their respective supervisory fees, to include in that delegated act the explanations contained in the annex of the contested decision. That ground is supported by two arguments: first, in making that finding, the General Court conflated the empowerment in Article 43(4) with that in Article 33(3) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 and; second, in making that finding, the General Court failed to recognise that the Commission is already limited, in the type of information on which it may rely to determine AMAR for the purposes of allocating its supervisory costs, by the common parameters for counting AMAR which are contained in Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 itself.


(1)  Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1127 supplementing Regulation 2022/2065 with the detailed methodologies and procedures regarding the supervisory fees charged by the Commission on providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines (OJ 2023 L 149, p. 16).

(2)  Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) (OJ 2022 L 277, p. 1).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/164/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)