A British judge has given the go-ahead for a mass legal action against Meta, the owner of Facebook.
The case, which is potentially worth £3bn, is being brought by legal academic Dr. Liza Lovdahl Gormsen on behalf of 45 million Facebook users. A revised version of her original claim has now been accepted, and the case is expected to be heard in early 2026.
The new claim alleges that Facebook has struck an unfair bargain with its users, stating that the social media giant abused its dominance by making users give it their data from non-Facebook products, including Meta-owned Instagram and other third-party sites.
According to legal documents, sharing data with third parties had become “a condition of accessing the Facebook platform, pursuant to a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ offer”.
The claim is seeking compensation of £2.07-3.1bn for those who had Facebook accounts between February 2016 and October 2023 and will be heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Meta has stated that the claims “remain entirely without merit and we will vigorously defend against them” and that “fundamental concerns identified by the tribunal in its February 2023 judgment have not been resolved.”
The legal action is being funded by Innsworth, a company backed by an investment management fund, which has previously funded mass legal actions against Mastercard, Ericsson, and Volkswagen.
In 2023, Meta paid out $725m (£583m) in a privacy case to Facebook account holders in the US, signaling the potential for similar outcomes in other jurisdictions.
