Social network could face $1.6 billion fine in EU

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., listens during a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 10, 2018.

The maximum fine Facebook could face is 4 percent of annual global turnover, if it is found to have breached GDPR. Since the social network made over $40.65 billion last year in revenue, that total fine could amount to around $1.63 billion.

But it’s worth noting that’s the maximum fine and the EU does not have a history of invoking the harshest punishment under law. Facebook also appears to have notified regulators about the breach within the required time.

Vera Jourova, the EU’s justice commissioner, said she has been in “close contact” with the Irish DPC, which is “intensively working on this case.” She told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche that GDPR has given the EU a strong way to punish companies who fall afoul of the rules.

“For these cases, I think Europe is… equipped with GDPR because we have very strict rules and we have very strong instruments to discipline the companies which deal and which handle the private data of people, which is obviously the case with Facebook. We are waiting for further information over the next… days,” Jourova said Tuesday.

The EU has been cracking down hard on U.S. technology companies. Last year, it fined Google 2.4 billion euros ($2.77 billion) after it said the search engine giant violated antitrust rules with its online shopping practices. The regulators then hit Google with a 4.34 billion euro fine earlier this year, accusing it of abusing its dominant position with its Android mobile operating system.

These were antitrust fines, however, and not under GDPR.