The General Court, the second highest legal authority in the EU, has dismissed an appeal by Zalando regarding its classification by the European Commission as a very large online platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
“The General Court has rejected Zalando’s appeal against the designation of its eponymous platform as a very large online platform,” according to a statement from the Court.
The ruling supports Brussels’ assessment that the average monthly number of active users on Zalando’s platform in the EU exceeded the threshold of 45 million, representing more than 10% of the bloc’s population, specifically more than 83 million.
The Court asserted that Zalando is considered an online platform under the DSA as third-party sellers offer products via the ‘Partner Program’.
Conversely, this does not apply to Zalando’s direct sales (‘Zalando Retail’).
However, the Court noted that Zalando could not differentiate among the more than 83 million users of its platform (including ‘Zalando Retail’ and the ‘Partner Program’) those who were effectively exposed to information provided by third-party sellers in the ‘Partner Program’ from those who were not. It concluded that the Commission was justified in considering all users as being exposed to such information.
