Notices for publication in the OJ nº T-452/20 of Tribunal General de la Unión Europea, August 14, 2020

• Resolution Date: August 14, 2020
• Issuing Organization: Tribunal General de la Unión Europea
• Decision Number: T-452/20

Action brought on 15 July 2020 - Facebook Ireland v Commission

(Case T-452/20)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Facebook Ireland Ltd (Dublin, Ireland) (represented by: D. Jowell, QC, D. Bailey, Barrister, J. Aitken, D. Das, S. Malhi, R. Haria, M. Quayle, Solicitors and T. Oeyen, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

partially annul Article 1 of the Commission Decision C(2020) 3013 final, dated 4 May 2020 (Case AT.40684 - Facebook Marketplace), in so far as it requests the internal documents specified in Annex I.B;

in the alternative: (i) partially annul Article 1 of the Contested Marketplace Decision in so far as it unlawfully requests irrelevant documents; (ii) partially annul Article 1 of the Contested Marketplace Decision in order that independent EU-qualified lawyers may be permitted to conduct a relevance review of the documents captured by the Marketplace Document Request in order to exclude from production documents that are manifestly irrelevant to the investigation and/or personal documents; and/or (iii) partially annul Article 1 of the Contested Marketplace Decision in so far as it unlawfully requires production of irrelevant documents that are personal or private in nature;

order the Commission to pay the applicant’s costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on three pleas in law.

First plea in law, alleging that by requiring a document production consisting of a clear majority of wholly irrelevant and/or personal documents, the contested Decision infringes the principle of necessity reflected in Article 18(3) of Regulation No 1/2003 and/or violates Facebook’s rights of defence and/or constitutes a...