The Platforms and Tiktok target have brought their fight against a technological rate of the EU to the second highest court in Europe.
They argue that the rate is unfair and is based on defective calculations.
According to the Digital Services Law (DSA), which became law in 2022, companies must pay a supervision rate.
The rate amounts to 0.05% of its global annual net income.
It helps cover the cost of the European Commission to monitor compliance.
The rate size depends on the average monthly users of each company and the financial results of the previous year.
Goal told the General Court that he does not oppose paying.
But he does not agree with how the commission calculated the rate.
Goal says that the rate was based on the income of the entire group instead of the local subsidiary.
Meta's lawyer, Assimakis Komninos, told the judges: “The provisions in the Digital Services Law, or DSA, go against the letter and the spirit of the law, are not so transparent with black boxes and have led to completely unlikely and absurd results.”
He said goal still does not know how the final amount was worked.
Tiktok, owned by Bytedance, raised similar objections.
Tiktok's lawyer Bill Batchelor, said: “What has happened here is everything less fair or proportional. The rate has used inaccurate figures and discriminatory methods.”
He added: “Inflate Tiktok rates, it requires that you pay, not only by itself, but by other platforms and ignore the limit of excessive rates.”
Batchelor accused the double counting users commission.
He explained that this happens when users change between devices.
He also said that regulators survived their powers through the use of group profits to establish the limit.
The European Commission retreated.
His lawyer, Lorna Armati, defended the method.
“When a group has consolidated accounts, it is the financial resources of the group that are available for that supplier to withstand the load of the rate,” he told the court.
She added: “Suppliers had enough information to understand why and how the commission used the numbers it made and it is not any violation of their right to be heard now, an unequal treatment.”
The court is expected to rule next year.
The cases are Commission T-55/24 Platforms Ireland V target and Commission T-58/24 Tiktok Technology V.
(Reuters)
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