The Warsaw Court of Appeal has issued a landmark ruling in the case against Meta Platforms, which we are handling on behalf of Ms. Omena Mensah and Mr. Rafał Brzoska.
 
The Court — examining an interlocutory appeal against the order granting interim relief — unequivocally held that it had been made sufficiently probable that Meta’s role in the dissemination of advertisements is not limited to “passive hosting,” and upheld the interim relief granted by the court of first instance in Ms. Omena Mensah’s case.
 
The Court rejected one of Meta’s most frequently invoked lines of defence — reliance on “safe harbour” status under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). The decisive factor was an assessment of the platform’s actual role in the ad delivery process. The Court found that Meta does not act as a passive technical intermediary: the platform actively determines which advertisements are published, reviews them prior to dissemination, collects remuneration for their display, and deploys advanced targeting algorithms.
 
Although issued at a preliminary stage of the proceedings, the ruling is of precedent-setting significance — including at the European level. For parties harmed by fraudulent advertisements, it opens a real and more expedient avenue to effective legal protection. For platforms, it sends an unambiguous signal that an active role in the advertising ecosystem carries legal liability that cannot be reduced to the status of a neutral intermediary.
 
The case is being handled by Maciej Ślusarek and Aleksandra Szwajkowska.