Luxembourg, February 26, 2026 — EU Advocate General Athanasios Rantos has proposed that the Court of Justice dismiss Meta Platforms Ireland’s appeals challenging European Commission decisions that required the company to provide internal documents identified through combinations of electronic search terms.
The two appeals relate to an investigation into alleged abuse of a dominant position involving the use of Facebook data and the Facebook Marketplace service. Meta appealed earlier General Court judgments that upheld the lawfulness of the Commission’s requests for information.
The disputes stem from two Commission decisions adopted in 2020 requesting internal documents held by certain senior staff over a number of years. Following interlocutory proceedings, the Commission adopted amending decisions introducing a virtual data room procedure intended to regulate access to certain documents containing sensitive personal data.
In two judgments dated May 24, 2023, the General Court dismissed Meta’s challenges, finding the requests were sufficiently reasoned, necessary, and proportionate and complied with privacy protections and the principle of good administration.
Scope Of Commission Powers
In his opinion, Rantos said the Commission has “broad powers of investigation” under the procedural regulation in this area and may request “all necessary information” to carry out its tasks. He added that the duty to state reasons requires the Commission to indicate the subject matter of its investigation and the suspected infringement, without needing to provide an exhaustive legal assessment or demonstrate the individual relevance of each document at that stage.
Rantos considered the General Court did not err in law in concluding that the search terms complied with the principle of necessity and that the Commission could reasonably conclude the documents identified “might enable it to investigate the suspected infringements,” even if many documents later proved irrelevant.
Privacy Safeguards
The opinion also addresses privacy safeguards around mixed documents containing personal data alongside other information. Rantos said the Commission may request such documents without applying the virtual data room procedure where processing is inherent to its public interest tasks, while noting that access was subject to strict limits and safeguards, with no disproportionate interference with privacy.
The cases are Cases C-496/23 P and C-497/23 P Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission (Facebook
Marketplace and Facebook Data) before the European Court of Justice.
Source: https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2026-02/cp260024en.pdf
