By its judgment of 3 June 2026 in case T-1078/23, Meta Platforms v Commission, the General Court of the European Union (“General Court”) has delivered one of the first major rulings on the application of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), partially annulling the European Commission’s designation of Meta as a gatekeeper. While the Court upheld the designation in respect of Facebook and Messenger, it annulled the designation concerning Marketplace.
Legal framework
The case revolves around the interpretation of the DMA, which introduces a system of ex ante regulation by the European Commission (“Commission”) for large digital platforms designated as “gatekeepers”.
Under Article 3(1) of the DMA, an undertaking must be designated as a gatekeeper if it provides a core platform service (“CPS”) that serves as an important gateway through which business users can reach end users. This criterion is presumed to be met when the undertaking exceeds certain user-based thresholds. In particular, the service must, in the last financial year, have had at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the Union and at least 10 000 yearly active business users established in the Union. However, the undertaking may rebut this presumption by providing sufficiently substantiated evidence under Article 3(5) of the DMA.
Facts of the case
The dispute stems from Meta’s notification to the Commission in July 2023 in the context of its potential designation as a gatekeeper. While Meta accepted that Facebook qualified as a CPS, it challenged the classification of Messenger and Marketplace as distinct CPSes.
By a decision of 5 September 2023, the Commission found that Facebook, Messenger and Marketplace constituted distinct CPSes, respectively an online social networking service, a number-independent interpersonal communications service (“NIICS”) and an online intermediation service (“OIS”). Based on the user-number thresholds, the Commission concluded that those services were presumed to constitute important gateways for business users to reach end users.
In addition, the Commission rejected Meta’s attempts to rebut those presumptions, without opening a market investigation, on the grounds that Meta had failed to provide evidence capable of manifestly calling the presumptions into question. In particular, the Commission dismissed Meta’s arguments concerning the changes introduced to Marketplace in 2023, which imposed strict limits on the number of listings per user and could have potentially removed business users from the platform. The Commission therefore designated Meta as a gatekeeper in relation to all three services.
Consequently, Meta brought an action before the General Court seeking partial annulment of the Commission’s decision, focusing primarily on the classification of Messenger and Marketplace as distinct CPSes that are important gateways.
Findings of the Court
With regard to the classification of Messenger as a CPS that is an important gateway
First, the General Court confirmed that Messenger must be regarded as a separate CPS. In particular, it outlined that Messenger constitutes a NIICS rather than being a minor feature of Facebook. In its assessment, the General Court took, in particular, the following elements into consideration :
(i) Messenger is offered through standalone applications, especially on mobile devices;
(ii) Users can access and use the service independently of Facebook activity, even where the social network is inactive; and
(iii) The service includes dedicated tools enabling businesses to engage directly with end users.
Importantly, the General Court rejected Meta’s argument that Messenger constitutes merely a functional component of Facebook, holding instead that the integrated nature of digital ecosystems does not preclude the classification of certain functionalities as independent services for the purposes of the DMA.
Second, the Court upheld the Commission’s finding that Messenger constitutes an important gateway. It confirmed that, when applying the DMA thresholds, the Commission was entitled to count all active users of Messenger, including those who also use Facebook, without any obligation to isolate a subset of users who access Messenger independently.
Meta’s attempts to rebut the presumption that Messenger is an important gateway were dismissed. The Court stressed that the DMA imposes a high evidentiary threshold for rebuttal, requiring sufficiently substantiated and directly relevant arguments. In this case, Meta’s submissions were found to be insufficient to call the presumption into question.
Third, the Court held that the Commission was not required to open a market investigation before adopting its decision, as such a step is required only where the undertaking provides sufficiently substantiated evidence capable of calling them into question.
Accordingly, the General Court upheld the designation of Messenger as a distinct CPS that is an important gateway.
With regard to the classification of Marketplace as a CPS that is an important gateway
The General Court identified two significant shortcomings in the Commission’s assessment of Marketplace.
First, the General Court held that the Commission committed an error of law in its approach to the temporal framework of its analysis. The Commission had relied primarily on data from the three financial years preceding the designation (2020-2022), rather than taking full account of significant changes introduced by Meta in 2023, shortly before the adoption of the decision.
In particular, the Court held that the Commission’s approach was flawed as it conflated, on the one hand, the retrospective assessment required for quantitative thresholds and, on the other hand, the assessment of the nature and classification of the service, which must reflect the situation at the time of the decision. For these reasons, the Court recalled that the legality of an EU measure must be assessed in light of the facts and law as they stand at the time of its adoption.
By failing to properly take into account the changes introduced by Meta in July 2023, including restrictions on the number of listings per user, the Commission applied an incorrect legal framework to the classification of Marketplace as an OIS.
Second, and more fundamentally, the Court found that the Commission’s decision failed to provide adequate reasoning, in breach of Article 296 of the TFEU.
In particular, the Commission relied on a “power sellers” proxy to identify business users on Marketplace. However, changes introduced by Meta in July 2023 limited the number of listings per user and could have removed such business users from the platform altogether.
In that context, the Court held that the Commission failed to explain clearly how, following those changes, Marketplace could still allow business users to offer goods or services to consumers, as required for classification as an OIS.
Accordingly, the Court annulled the Commission’s decision insofar as it designates Meta as a gatekeeper for Marketplace.
Conclusion
This judgment represents one of the first substantive rulings of the EU Courts on the application of the DMA and provides important guidance on both substantive and procedural aspects of that regulation.
On the one hand, the Court confirms a broad and functional interpretation of CPSes, emphasising that services within integrated ecosystems may still qualify as separate CPSes where they operate independently in practice. It also underlines the strength of the presumptions established by the DMA and the high evidentiary threshold required to rebut them.
On the other hand, the judgment highlights the importance of procedural safeguards, requiring the Commission to base its assessment on current factual circumstances and to provide clear and adequate reasoning for its decisions.
More broadly, the ruling underlines the emergence of a distinct legal regime for digital markets, combining robust regulatory powers with effective judicial oversight. It confirms that, while the DMA equips the Commission with powerful tools, notably to perform an extensive economic assessment of the circumstances of the case, those tools must be exercised under strict compliance with procedural guarantees.