Facebook privacy campaigner’s costs limited to €10,000

Privacy campaigner Max Schrems will have to pay no more than €10,000 in legal costs should he lose his legal action arising from the mass transfer of data by Facebook Ireland to the US intelligence services, a High Court judge has ruled.

In what is known as a “protection costs order”, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan applied a €10,000 limit to costs of the Austria-based law student’s legal challenge to the Data Protection Commissioner’s refusal to deal with his complaint over the data transfer issue.

In the context of other rulings made on costs issues in similar cases brought over important constitutional issues, the judge said he was unlikely to make a costs order against Mr Schrems in any event.

Fund-raising campaign

Rather than give a protective costs order for €55,000, as sought by the Data Commissioner in recognition of the amount Mr Schrems has obtained through a fund-raising campaign, the judge said he would limit it to €10,000.

As a postgraduate law student in his 20s, on the cusp of his career, Mr Schrems was very likely to be exercised by the prospect of legal costs, the judge noted. The €55,000 raised was, furthermore, not entirely under Mr Schrems control and was being used to fund 22 similar complaints made by him over data protection.

Last month, the judge referred Mr Schrems’ challenge to the European Court of Justice given that much has happened since an agreement on data transfer between the EU and the US, known as the Safe Harbour agreement, was approved in 2000.