TikTok joins Meta in challenging the EU's DSA in the General Court, arguing the levy is unfair as some firms pay nothing; Meta must pay €11M of the €45M total
Social media giants Meta and TikTok are suing the European Union over a levy that bankrolls the enforcement …
Context & Ripple Effects
This levy case extends a broader strategy of testing the EU's platform-rule regime in court: TikTok had already joined Meta in a challenge to its DMA gatekeeper designation. The dispute matters because the DSA's enforcement funding is being contested at the point where it is allocated among regulated platforms.
The challenge became a consequential test of the Commission's fee design: later coverage reports that the General Court found the supervisory-fee methodology flawed, rather than simply rejecting the companies' objections.
First-order effects
- Meta and TikTok face legal costs and uncertainty over their DSA supervisory-fee obligations while the General Court reviews how the charge is calculated and distributed.
- The Commission's collection of a €45 million levy is directly contested, including Meta's €11 million share, putting the allocation methodology under judicial scrutiny.
Second-order effects
- Other platforms subject to DSA supervision gain a basis to examine whether their own fees reflect the same disputed treatment of companies that pay nothing.
- A successful challenge would force the Commission to revisit the mechanics of funding DSA enforcement, potentially delaying or revising invoices rather than changing the underlying obligations.
Third-order effects
- The case turns enforcement funding into a durable litigation front alongside substantive platform rules: regulators will need fee formulas that can withstand proportionality and equal-treatment challenges.
- If this pattern persists, large platforms will increasingly use EU courts to define the operational boundaries of DSA and DMA enforcement, not only to contest individual compliance decisions.
The trend: EU platform regulation is moving from rulemaking into sustained judicial testing of both regulatory obligations and the cost of enforcing them.