Meta has challenged Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom in the High Court over how it calculates regulatory fees and potential fines under the UK’s Online Safety Act.
The Facebook and Instagram owner argues that Ofcom is using worldwide revenue too broadly when calculating what large technology companies may have to pay. The company says the method could result in penalties that are disproportionate to the services actually regulated in Britain.
The case opened in London’s High Court on October 13 and could influence how some of the world’s largest technology companies are charged under Britain’s expanding online safety regime.
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Meta disputes use of worldwide revenue
The Online Safety Act allows Ofcom to impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s qualifying worldwide revenue or £18 million, whichever is higher, when serious breaches are established.
Ofcom can also recover the cost of operating the online safety regime through annual fees paid by regulated companies.
Meta’s challenge centres on how that revenue is calculated.
The company argues that Ofcom has adopted an excessively broad definition of “qualifying worldwide revenue”. According to Meta, the regulator’s approach can include global revenue from services that have little or no direct connection to the UK activity being regulated.
Meta says the calculation should more closely reflect the services falling within British jurisdiction.
Ofcom rejects that argument.
The regulator maintains that its approach follows Parliament’s framework and creates a proportionate system in which the largest companies contribute according to their scale.
The dispute is therefore not about whether Meta must comply with Britain’s online safety rules. It is about how much financial exposure the company should face when those rules are enforced.
What ‘qualifying worldwide revenue’ actually means
This is the technical issue at the centre of the court fight.
Imagine a company operates several services across dozens of countries. Only some of those services may be subject to a particular UK investigation.
If a fine is calculated using only the revenue generated by the relevant UK service, the financial penalty could be relatively small.
If regulators can instead use a much larger portion of the company’s worldwide revenue, the possible penalty rises sharply.
That difference matters enormously for companies such as Meta, whose platforms serve billions of users globally.
The Online Safety Act deliberately gives Ofcom access to large maximum penalties so that fines cannot simply be treated as a routine business expense by global technology companies.
Meta argues that this does not give the regulator unlimited freedom to include revenue unrelated to the regulated service.
The court will have to consider whether Ofcom’s interpretation stays within the powers given to it under the law.
Challenge comes as Ofcom increases scrutiny of Meta
The legal dispute arrives at a sensitive moment for Meta in Britain.
On October 6, Ofcom opened an investigation into whether Meta properly assessed safety risks before launching Instagram’s “Instants” feature in May.
Instants allows users to share photos and videos through Instagram Direct in a form that disappears after viewing.
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must assess risks involving illegal content and harm to children. They are also expected to carry out fresh risk assessments before making significant changes to how a service works.
Ofcom is examining whether Meta met those obligations before launching the feature.
The regulator has stressed that opening an investigation does not mean it has concluded that Meta broke the law.
Meta is also involved in another legal challenge alongside TikTok and X over the amount of information Ofcom can demand from technology companies as part of its online safety oversight.
That case shows a wider tension emerging between Britain’s regulator and some of the world’s biggest digital platforms.
The companies are not only being asked to remove harmful material. They are increasingly being required to explain how their systems operate, assess risks before launching new features and provide detailed information to regulators.
Court fight could shape UK tech enforcement
Britain’s Online Safety Act represents one of the country’s biggest attempts to impose formal duties on large internet platforms.
The law gives Ofcom responsibility for overseeing how companies address illegal content and risks to children.
For the regime to work, however, penalties must be large enough to influence multinational companies.
That is why revenue-based fines have become so important.
A fixed fine of a few million pounds could have little impact on a company earning tens of billions globally. A percentage-based penalty creates much greater pressure to comply.
But Meta’s court challenge raises the other side of that argument: how far should a national regulator be allowed to reach into global corporate revenue when calculating a penalty for conduct connected to one country?
The High Court’s eventual decision could affect far more than Meta.
Other large technology companies operating under the Online Safety Act will be watching closely because the ruling could determine how Ofcom calculates future fees and penalties across the sector.
What this means for you:
The case could decide how much financial pressure UK regulators can place on global platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Stronger penalty powers may give regulators more leverage when companies fail to meet online safety obligations.
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