Meta challenges the worldwide-revenue base Ofcom uses to set both fees and fines

Two obligations hang off one number. Ofcom uses qualifying worldwide revenue to set both the annual fee a regulated platform owes and the ceiling on any fine it could face ^[6]. That ceiling is 10 percent of QWR or 18 million pounds, whichever is greater ^[8]. Meta reported roughly $201 billion of global revenue in the prior fiscal year ^[9]. Ten percent of that is about $20.1 billion ^[10]. The 18 million pound alternative is written for platforms at the bottom of the fee base. For Meta, the 10 percent figure is always the one that governs.

The dates matter. Ofcom introduced the fees regime around September 2025, and the first invoices are expected around September 2026 ^[12][13]. The preliminary hearing on May 7, 2026 deals with procedural questions ^[2], and the substantive hearing is set for October 2026, which is where the proportionality and fairness arguments get tested ^[3][22]. The first bill under the formula therefore arrives about a month before the court takes up whether the formula is lawful ^[14]. Crypto Briefing does not state Ofcom's fee rate or the amount Meta would owe.

Meta's challenge is to the calculation itself. Its case, as reported by Crypto Briefing, is that indexing fees and penalties to worldwide revenue instead of UK earnings leaves it covering the lion's share of the regulator's costs ^[11]. The classification fight runs on a separate track: WhatsApp and Instagram are appealing their Category 1 designations ^[15], Roblox and Quora are contesting theirs ^[16], and Category 1 carries the most extensive obligations on content moderation, transparency reporting and user safety ^[17].

The Computer and Communications Industry Association and Epic Games are expected to intervene on Meta's side ^[4]. The 5Rights Foundation will back Ofcom ^[5]; it works on children's digital rights and represents the constituency that pushed hardest for the Act in the first place ^[23].

I would expect Ofcom to hold, and not because proportionality is a weak argument. The Wikimedia Foundation's 2025 challenge to categorization and age-verification obligations failed ^[20], and the Act has had Royal Assent since October 2023 ^[21], so a win for Meta means a court unpicking the costing rule inside a statute it has already declined to disturb. Meta's better ground is the economics: a regulator recovering the cost of UK oversight from global turnover is charging a company with a $201 billion revenue base ^[9] for supervision of a market that is a fraction of it, and the 250 million pound trigger ^[7] decides who else joins it in paying. Two things could change the shape of the case before the autumn. The May hearing could narrow the grounds so that proportionality is never reached ^[22], or the Category 1 appeals could resolve first and change the population Ofcom is costing ^[18].