Courts siding with large companies in privacy appeals |
The Wall Street Journal looks at how big companies are winning appeals to overturn regulatory decisions they claim violate European privacy laws. In recent rulings, courts in the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany sided with companies including Experian, Amazon and Italian energy giant Enel SpA, in some cases quashing multimillion-dollar fines and reaffirming companies’ arguments that their data practices comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Edward Machin, a lawyer in the London office of Ropes & Gray, said: "We’re starting to see the through line of companies starting to pick their battles and spend the time and effort on the appeals they think they can win and would have an effect on their business models." Flora Egea Torrón, a partner at Spanish law firm Legal Army S.L., said appeals of major GDPR decisions show a significant amount of “grey area” where privacy lawyers, regulators and courts disagree over what the law allows. “There’s so much room still to interpret GDPR, so that’s why [companies] have to fight against the decisions” from regulators, she said.