The High Court has ruled that TikTok should be allowed to continue disputed transfers of European user data to China while it challenges a Data Protection Commission decision imposing €530 million in fines and ordering the transfers to be suspended.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy concluded that a stay should apply to the DPC’s suspension and corrective orders pending determination of TikTok’s appeal, subject to conditions designed to keep that delay as short as possible.
The DPC’s April 2025 decision followed an inquiry into transfers between 29 July 2020 and 17 May 2023. It found that TikTok had breached the GDPR by failing to demonstrate that European Economic Area user data remotely accessed by personnel in China received protection essentially equivalent to that available within the EU. A separate infringement concerned information provided to users about transfers up to December 2022.
The €530 million administrative fines are already stayed automatically under the Data Protection Act while the appeal is pending. The present application concerned the separate orders requiring TikTok to suspend the transfers and bring its processing into compliance.
TikTok argued that complying before its appeal was decided would require major changes to its technical systems and workforce. Evidence before the court estimated lost profit contribution in the EEA at US$1.716 billion during the suspension period and additional personnel costs outside the EEA at US$3.105 billion.
The court held that the Irish Okunade test, rather than the stricter EU Zuckerfabrik test urged by the DPC, governed the stay application. It found TikTok had shown significant losses that would be extremely difficult to quantify or recover if it ultimately won its appeal.
At the same time, the judge stressed that the case involves potential risks to the fundamental data-protection rights of about 159 million monthly EEA users. He found those risks weighty but, on the evidence available, limited and temporary during a short stay.
TikTok is to pursue its appeal with all reasonable diligence, seek to have it heard by March 2026 and clearly notify users of the DPC decision, its appeal and the stay.