In a nutshell: The Hamburg Higher Regional Court has suspended the Meta proceedings over data protection violations and awaits an admissibility decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg has suspended the proceedings of the Federal Association of Consumer Centres (VZBV) against Meta. The Court of Justice of the European Union is to first clarify whether the model declaratory action is admissible — a fundamental question that has remained unresolved since the start of proceedings in October 2025.
The proceedings concern a data breach at Facebook between May 2018 and September 2019. Criminals distributed the data of over 530 million Facebook users in the Dark Web in April 2021. The VZBV is suing Meta on grounds of alleged violations of data protection law. By early October 2025, more than 14,000 consumers had joined the model declaratory action.
The settlement negotiations between VZBV and Meta (Ireland) have failed. For this reason, proceedings at the Higher Regional Court Hamburg are suspended. The decisive open question: Is the model declaratory action against Meta admissible? Meta contests this. This question must be answered in advance by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg before the Hamburg court can proceed.
Model declaratory actions were introduced by the German legislature in 2018 and enable associations to sue on behalf of many consumers. For compliance officers, the CJEU decision is relevant because it will fundamentally clarify the legal binding nature of such collective actions in the EU. According to the court spokesperson, it is unclear when proceedings can resume. Based on experience, it takes several months for the CJEU to respond.
Source: www.it-daily.net · Published 29 June 2026
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