Case T-521/26, Meta Platforms v Commission – WhatsApp, rival AI assistants and the price of access
The Commission rarely orders interim measures in competition cases. It has done so against Meta, to keep rival AI assistants on WhatsApp while it investigates, and Meta has gone to the General Court.
Facts
The Commission opened proceedings against Meta in Case AT.41034 in December 2025, concerning changes to the terms of the WhatsApp Business API that excluded third-party general-purpose AI assistants. On 9 June 2026 it adopted a decision under Article 8(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003, which allows interim measures “in cases of urgency due to the risk of serious and irreparable damage to competition” and “on the basis of a prima facie finding of infringement”. According to the Commission’s announcement, the decision requires Meta to restore those assistants’ access on the terms that applied before 15 October 2025, under which access was free. According to Meta’s application, Articles 2 to 6 of the decision “mandate free access to the WhatsApp Business API and prohibit the applicant from charging any fee” and impose periodic penalty payments, and Article 5 imposes a duration of three years. Meta asks the General Court to annul the decision in full or, in the alternative, those articles, or at least the three-year duration.
Pleas in Law
According to the Official Journal notice, the applicant relies on eight pleas in law:
1. First plea in law, alleging that the decision commits a manifest error of law and assessment (including by applying the wrong analytical framework) in its assessments of market definition and dominance and fails to state adequate reasons for its market definition and dominance conclusions.
2. Second plea in law, alleging that there is no prima facie infringement of Article 102 TFEU as the decision’s legal framework for assessing the applicant’s conduct under Article 102 TFEU and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement is wrong in law. These errors vitiate the decision.
3. Third plea in law, alleging in the alternative to the second plea, that there is no prima facie infringement of Article 102 TFEU even on the decision’s own application of Article 102 TFEU and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement, as applicant’s conduct does not prima facie depart from competition on the merits is vitiated by an error of law, manifest errors of assessment, and a failure to state adequate reasons as required by Article 296 TFEU.
4. Fourth plea in law, alleging that the decision errs in law, commits manifest errors of assessment and fails to state adequate reasons for its finding that the applicant’s conduct is capable of producing exclusionary effects in the EEA-wide market for general purpose AI assistants.
5. Fifth plea in law, alleging that the decision errs in law, commits manifest errors of assessment and fails to state adequate reasons for its finding that the applicant’s conduct satisfies the conditions for interim measures under Article 8 of Regulation No 1/2003.
6. Sixth plea in law, alleging that the decision commits manifest errors of assessment in its proportionality assessment and fails to state adequate reasons for its conclusion that the interim measures are proportionate. The interim measures imposed by the decision are disproportionate and fail on the balance of interests.
7. Seventh plea in law (in the alternative), alleging that the decision errs in law and commits manifest errors of assessment in relation to the applicant’s objective justifications for its conduct.
8. Eighth plea in law, alleging that the decision errs in law by failing to state adequate reasons under Article 296 TFEU for imposing free access.
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/5627 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 · Alphabet and Others, C‑233/23 (ECLI:EU:C:2025:110)
Comment
The second and third pleas attack the legal framework, and the relevant case law is the line that has moved furthest since Bronner. In Alphabet and Others (C‑233/23), the Android Auto case, the Court held that a refusal to make a platform interoperable with a third party’s app may be abusive “even though that platform is not indispensable”, where the platform “has not been developed by the undertaking in a dominant position solely for the needs of its own business”. A business messaging API exists to be used by others. The same judgment also answers part of the first and fourth pleas. A competition authority “may confine itself to identifying the downstream market on which that refusal is capable of having anticompetitive effects, even if that downstream market is merely a potential market”. That matters for a market in general-purpose AI assistants, which is young and still forming.
The eighth plea, on price, may be Meta’s strongest. Alphabet did not require access for nothing. Where there is no objective justification for refusing interoperability, the dominant undertaking must provide it “in return for, depending on the circumstances, appropriate financial consideration”, taking account of the actual cost and its right “to derive an appropriate benefit”. The obvious answer is that interim measures preserve the position before the conduct began, and that before 15 October 2025 access was free. Whether a measure meant to hold the ring can fix the price at zero for three years, and whether the decision gives reasons for doing so, is what the eighth plea asks.
The fifth and sixth pleas go to the interim nature of the decision. Article 8 requires urgency and a risk of “serious and irreparable damage to competition”, and a measure that “shall apply for a specified period of time”. The argument for urgency is that in a market still forming, an assistant shut out of a messaging service of WhatsApp’s reach for the length of an investigation may not come back. Meta’s case is that three years of compulsory free access is not interim at all. An earlier dispute between Meta and the Commission, over the Digital Markets Act, is already before the Court of Justice; this one is under Article 102, and will decide how far the Commission can go before it has proved an infringement.