EU court rejects Meta challenge to antitrust information requests

BRUSSELS: Meta Platforms suffered a setback on Wednesday as Europe’s second-top court ruled as legitimate the EU antitrust watchdog’s requests for information related to its investigation into Facebook’s data and online marketplace.

A spokesperson for the U.S. tech giant, which had compared the European Commission to a fishing super trawler vacuuming up data over the requests, said it was “considering its options” over the court decision.

“The General Court finds that Meta Platforms Ireland has not successfully demonstrated that the request to provide documents to be identified by search terms went beyond what was necessary,” the Luxembourg-based General Court said.