Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen v Meta Platforms Inc.

Dr Gormsen’s first attempt to obtain a collective proceedings order from the Tribunal resulted in the Tribunal staying her application for six months to enable her to provide a new and better blueprint to an effective trial: [2023] CAT 10. Dr Gormsen’s revised application sought to combine claims that Meta had abused its dominant position through its practice of collecting data from its users’ activity outside the Facebook platform (“Off-Facebook Data”). Dr Gormsen alleged that Meta combined this Off-Facebook Data with data gathered onsite and used it to generate extremely substantial advertising revenues by enabling highly targeted advertising. Dr Gormsen claimed that, by imposing the collection of Off-Facebook Data on users as a take-it-or-leave-it condition of accessing the Facebook platform, Meta had imposed an unfair price or unfair trading condition on users. Dr Gormsen claimed that users had thereby suffered collective losses of over £2 billion.

The Tribunal concluded that the claims advanced by way of Dr Gormsen’s revised CPO application were arguable and satisfied the Pro-Sys test insofar as they could be easily managed to trial. The Tribunal therefore decided to certify the collective proceedings (subject to Dr Gormsen filing a ten-page summary of her case).

The judgment can be read here.

Tom Coates acted for Dr Gormsen in her revised application.