European Union: TikTok filed lawsuit against European Commission challenging supervisory fees under Digital Services Act

On 6 February 2024, TikTok filed a lawsuit challenging the European Commission’s Implementing Decision C(2023) 8173 of 27 November 2023, which set the supervisory fee it must pay under the Digital Services Act (DSA). TikTok argues that the Commission misapplied the legal definition of average monthly active recipients, failed to respect the statutory fee cap of 0.05% of net income and wrongly imposed residual charges. It also alleged that the fees included costs outside the scope of Article 43(2) of DSA on supervisory fees charged by the European Commission to very large online platforms and search engines. It also alleged that it breached both its rights of defence and the duty to state reasons by providing inadequate justification for the methodology and calculations used.