In its judgment delivered yesterday in Case C-252/21, Meta Platforms and Others (General terms of use of a social network), the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union dealt with a competition law (abuse of a dominant position) case, when privacy comes into the picture. Thus, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was also present.
Whilst the judgment touched on many issues, one of the more curious ones concerns the division of labour (or overlap) of different national bodies on the subject matter: a horizontal matter.
First, the Court established that it is not only national data supervisory authorities that can find privacy violations under the GDPR. Competition authorities can too, given the economic implications of their own role.
Second, whilst national competition authorities now examining GDPR issues also, they must respect the assessments of national data protection/supervisory authorities.
Third, given the risk for potential divergences between the different authorities, be in it their practices and interpretations, they must exercise sincere cooperation to minimize divergencies.
Whilst EU law, for now, sets down no clear rules of engagement as regards data supervisory bodies and national competition authorities, and given that the two bodies perform different functions and pursue their own objectives and tasks, it will be one to watch to see how national competition authorities choose to make use of these uncovered powers, and how national data protection/supervisory authorities will handle the fact that they are no longer the only show in town.
The judgment of the Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) in Case C-252/21, Meta Platforms and Others (General terms of use of a social network), can be accessed at the following link: https://lnkd.in/eVq8JWKA
Graham Butler