The split holds.
On June 3, 2026, the EU General Court issued its ruling in Case T-1078/23
(ECLI:EU:T:2026:357), partially annulling the European Commission’s gatekeeper
designation of Meta Platforms under the
Digital
Markets Act. Facebook Marketplace lost its designation. Facebook Messenger kept
every obligation it had before the ruling.
That distinction matters.
The court didn’t say the DMA doesn’t apply to Marketplace. It said the Commission
didn’t provide sufficient reasoning to establish that Marketplace qualifies as an
“online intermediation service”, the classification that triggers gatekeeper
obligations under Article 3. According to legal analysis of the ruling, the court
found the Commission failed to adequately account for Meta’s pre-designation
operational changes that limited commercial business use of the platform. Process
failed. The underlying question, whether Marketplace qualifies, remains open.
The DMA’s Article 3(2)(b) sets a threshold of 45 million monthly active users for
the gatekeeper presumption. Marketplace well exceeds that figure. But meeting a
threshold doesn’t automatically satisfy the reasoning requirements for a formal
designation decision, and that’s where the Commission’s case unraveled.
What Meta actually won, and didn’t win. Marketplace is free from DMA gatekeeper
obligations for now. The Commission can’t enforce interoperability, data-sharing, or
self-preferencing restrictions against it under the current designation. But the
Commission retains full authority to re-open the designation process with more
detailed supporting documentation. This isn’t a permanent reprieve. It’s a legal
deficiency notice.
Messenger stays bound. DMA obligations, including interoperability requirements with
third-party messaging services, remain in force. Meta’s compliance program for
Messenger continues unchanged.
Why this ruling reaches further than Meta. Every tech platform currently
designated as a DMA gatekeeper now has a clearer map of what challenge strategies
the General Court will consider. The procedural annulment standard, that the
Commission must document its reasoning for each service’s classification thoroughly –
creates a specific litigation pathway. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft each hold
designations covering specific services. An annulment on procedural grounds doesn’t
require arguing that the DMA itself is wrong, only that the Commission’s paperwork
wasn’t thorough enough for a particular service.
This is the real strategic takeaway for legal teams at designated platforms: the
General Court has now shown it will scrutinize designation process quality, not just
statutory eligibility. That’s a meaningful shift in how DMA enforcement challenges
can be structured.
Analysis
The procedural annulment standard established in T-1078/23 gives legal teams at other designated platforms a testable challenge pathway: if the Commission's service-level reasoning is insufficiently documented, the General Court has shown it will void the designation, regardless of whether the platform meets the statutory MAU threshold.
The catch is that procedural wins invite procedural fixes. The Commission knows
exactly what was missing in its Marketplace reasoning. A re-designation with complete
documentation could arrive faster than Meta’s compliance teams might expect. The
July 2026 window is plausible; there’s no regulatory obligation to wait.
What to watch. The Commission hasn’t announced whether it will pursue
re-designation of Marketplace. Watch for a formal response within the next 60-90
days, the institution has consistently moved to shore up designations when courts
have flagged reasoning gaps in adjacent cases. Separately, Messenger’s interoperability
requirements have their own implementation timeline; that compliance work isn’t paused
by this ruling.
TJS synthesis. The General Court has handed compliance teams at designated
platforms something they didn’t have before: a documented procedural standard they
can test. The question worth considering is whether your organization’s designation
review has mapped not just the statutory eligibility criteria, but the quality of the
Commission’s documented reasoning for each specific service. If the reasoning is thin,
the annulment pathway now has a working precedent. Don’t expect the Commission to
leave Marketplace undesignated for long, but do expect the next designation to be
substantially harder to challenge on the same grounds.