The High Court has refused Meta Platforms Ireland's application to have key preliminary legal issues in its €91 million data protection appeal heard alongside a separate LinkedIn case raising the same questions.
In a ruling delivered on 31 October 2025, Ms Justice Nessa Cahill held that the proposed parallel hearing would not serve the efficient and just management of the litigation.
Meta's underlying appeal challenges a Data Protection Commission decision of 26 September 2024 arising from an inquiry into password security. The DPC found infringements of several GDPR provisions, issued a reprimand and imposed administrative fines totalling €91 million.
The present motion did not decide that appeal. Instead, Meta sought to have four preliminary questions considered at the same time as, or immediately after, identical issues already fixed for hearing in LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company's separate appeal on 2 December 2025.
Those questions concern the scope and nature of appeals under sections 142 and 150 of the Data Protection Act 2018, the standard of review the High Court should apply and when fresh evidence or arguments may be introduced on appeal.
Meta argued that its own factual circumstances, particularly an expert report concerning encryption and the state of the art, would assist the court and justified treating its case as an additional pathfinder.
The DPC and Attorney General opposed the application, arguing that the issues were discrete questions of law and that a second hearing would duplicate submissions, increase costs and consume additional court time.
Ms Justice Cahill agreed. She found that Meta had not shown any material factual difference requiring the same questions to be heard again. The fact that the LinkedIn ruling would have precedential consequences for Meta did not give Meta a right to participate in that separate case.
The judge also rejected the pathfinder analogy, noting that LinkedIn had never been formally selected as a test case. She concluded that the ordinary position should apply: the legal issues will be decided in the earlier LinkedIn proceedings, and Meta's motion was refused.