Source: Euronews

The General Court of the European Union annulled the European Commission’s gatekeeper designation for Facebook Marketplace, finding that the Commission failed to adequately justify that part of its September 2023 decision; the court’s ruling was issued on Wednesday in Luxembourg. The annulment concerns Marketplace specifically and is described in the ruling as largely procedural, with the court noting the Commission did not consider new information about 2023 changes to Marketplace and relied on past three years’ data without sufficiently analysing post-change operations or whether businesses could offer goods and services on the site.

The practical effect is limited because the Commission had already removed Marketplace from its gatekeeper list in April 2025 after platform changes meant it no longer met the business-user thresholds. The court upheld the designation of Messenger as a gatekeeper, leaving obligations such as intended interoperability in place; the ruling also highlights that the Commission could redesignate Marketplace if user metrics recover and provides Meta with detailed points where the original decision’s reasoning fell short. The decision is framed as a setback for the Commission’s DMA enforcement but does not equate to a finding that Marketplace is not a gatekeeper on the merits.