Facebook Ireland builds €1bn fund to pay for potential fines

Multiple watchdogs likely to penalise the social media giant for regulatory issues involving data protection

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. His company's centre of operations in Europe is based in Irealnd.

Facebook Ireland, the social media giant's main centre of operation for its European operations and beyond, has set aside even more millions to build what is effectively a fund of more than €1bn to pay the fines it believes is likely heading its way from multiple regulators.                    

The latest accounts for the Irish-registered company show it added a further €724m in provisions last year and has now set aside just over €1bn for fines "arising from various regulatory matters principally under investigation by the relevant data protection supervisory authorities". 

Facebook generates billions in ad revenue from its main social platform, as well as from Instagram and Messenger, and other services, but has had a torrid time with multiple regulators in the US and Europe in recent times. It changed its corporate name to Meta. 

Competition probe

The EU in the summer opened a huge competition probe and Britain launched a similar investigation, while the Irish Data Protection Commission has longstanding investigations into the firm on European privacy law issues.

The 2020 accounts show Facebook prospered during the first year of the pandemic: pre-tax profits at Facebook Ireland jumped to almost €890m from almost €482m in 2019, as revenues climbed to €40.6bn from €34.3bn. 

The Irish company paid corporation tax of €266.3m, up from almost €173.2m in 2019, including a payment of €34.5m, up slightly from 2019, to resolve unspecified "tax matters".        

The directors of the Irish company are Gareth Lambe who heads up the newly renamed Meta Ireland, Maria-Begona Fallon, and David Geraghty. Fiona Mullan resigned from the board in June last year.