TikTok should remain designated as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act, an adviser to the EU’s highest court recommended on October 15.
Advocate General Andrea Biondi’s opinion is not binding. The Court of Justice has yet to rule on ByteDance’s appeal against the General Court judgment that upheld the European Commission’s designation.
The dispute tests how a company can rebut the presumption that follows from meeting the legislation’s numerical thresholds. Biondi said objections must seriously challenge that presumption, although a company need not conclusively disprove gatekeeper status at this preliminary stage.
Where sufficiently substantiated arguments manifestly call the presumption into question, he considers a market investigation mandatory unless it is already clear that the qualitative requirements are not met.
He rejected the examined challenges to the assessment of TikTok’s role as a gateway between businesses and users. Use of competing social networks did not, by itself, undermine that conclusion.
Biondi also proposed different reasoning on ByteDance’s right to be heard while recommending dismissal of the examined grounds. The opinion itself neither ends the appeal nor creates a new penalty.
Official court summary of the opinion, C-627/24 P.
