Tech giants Meta and TikTok took their dispute with European regulators to the General Court of the European Union on Wednesday, arguing that a supervisory fee imposed under the Digital Services Act is unfair, disproportionate, and based on flawed calculations.

The DSA, which came into force in 2022, imposes an annual supervisory fee of 0.05% of global net income on 19 of the largest online platforms, including Meta and TikTok. The fee is intended to fund the European Commission’s oversight of the companies’ compliance with the new digital regulation.

In court, Meta’s legal representative, Assimakis Komninos, criticized the Commission’s methodology for calculating the fee, claiming it lacked transparency and was based on the revenues of Meta’s parent company rather than its European subsidiary.

“The provisions in the DSA go against the letter and spirit of the law,” Komninos told the five-judge panel. “They are entirely opaque, rely on black-box calculations, and have produced implausible and absurd results.” He also noted that Meta still does not fully understand how the final figure was determined.

TikTok echoed these concerns. Represented by lawyer Bill Batchelor, the ByteDance-owned platform accused the Commission of using inaccurate data and discriminatory methods.

“The fee not only overstates TikTok’s obligations but also forces the company to subsidize compliance costs for other platforms,” Batchelor said. He added that the Commission’s counting of users across different devices—such as phones and laptops—as separate individuals led to inflated user figures and unjustifiably higher fees.

The TikTok lawyer further criticized the Commission’s use of group profits to determine the fee cap, arguing it overstepped its legal authority.

In response, Commission lawyer Lorna Armati defended the fee structure, arguing that using group-level financial data was appropriate for assessing companies with consolidated accounts.

“When a group has consolidated accounts, it is the financial strength of the group as a whole that should be considered in assessing the fee,” Armati said. She maintained that both Meta and TikTok had been given enough information to understand how their fees were calculated and denied any breach of due process or unequal treatment.

The General Court is expected to deliver its rulings in both cases—T-55/24 (Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission) and T-58/24 (TikTok Technology v Commission)—sometime in 2026.