The High Court has adjourned Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd’s statutory appeal and related judicial review proceedings in their entirety, pending the outcome of WhatsApp’s case before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It declined the Data Protection Commission’s proposal to hear some issues in a separate trial module.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered the case-management ruling on 10 May 2024. The proceedings concern Meta’s appeal against a DPC decision dated 25 November 2022, following an inquiry into conduct between May 2018 and September 2019. The DPC had directed Meta to bring its processing into compliance, issued a reprimand and imposed two fines totalling €265 million: €150 million for an alleged infringement of GDPR Article 25(1) and €115 million for an alleged infringement of Article 25(2).
The judgment says Meta had complied with the corrective measures to the DPC’s satisfaction, and the conduct under inquiry had ceased. The parties also agreed that Meta could not be required to pay the fines before the domestic proceedings were determined, and that issues concerning the interpretation of GDPR Article 83 should await the WhatsApp proceedings.
Those EU proceedings concern WhatsApp’s challenge to a binding European Data Protection Board decision about how GDPR Article 83(3) applies when the same or linked processing operations breach multiple provisions. The General Court had ruled WhatsApp’s challenge inadmissible. WhatsApp appealed that ruling to the CJEU; the High Court noted the CJEU could dismiss the appeal without reaching the underlying interpretation questions.
Justice Simons said the domestic issues could not sensibly be divided. Evidence about the nature and sensitivity of information allegedly disclosed could bear both on whether an infringement occurred and on the amount of any fine. Meta’s related judicial review also raises a constitutional challenge to legislation allowing the DPC to impose fines, which the court said could not properly be considered in isolation from the GDPR interpretation issues.
The judge also considered that separate modules could lead to fragmented appeals or multiple referrals to the CJEU and prolong the proceedings. He said an adjournment would not further delay implementation of the DPC decision, because the outstanding fine could not be enforced before the WhatsApp proceedings were resolved.
The proceedings were adjourned generally pending the outcome of the WhatsApp case, with the parties given liberty to apply. The court’s provisional view was that Meta should recover the costs of the case-management motion from the DPC. The matter was listed for 30 May 2024 for any submissions on the form of order; the judgment does not state the final costs order.