WHEN COMPETITION MEETS PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION

Abstract

In the submitted contribution the authors follow up on the case of Facebook, which was assessed by the German competition authority – Bundeskartellamt. Proceedings moved from administrative to judicial phase, as this case was assessed by Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf ) and also by Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof ). However, German national courts had adopted differing views in this regard. National German court (Higher Regional Court, Düsseldorf, Germany) rendered a prejudicial question to Court of Justice of the European union (hereinafter referred to as “CJEU”), concerning mainly (1) interpretation of GDPR regulation and (2) question of whether competition authority is entitled to apply this regulation in its investigations. In the corresponding case No. C-252/21, the Opinion of Advocate General (delivered on 20 September 2022) was recently published. The aim of this paper is to assess the interaction between personal data protection in correlation with the competition rules, more precisely, whether the competition authority is entitled to apply GDPR.