Court halts Amazon daily fine in legal data tussle

Amazon notched up a legal win on Friday, as a Luxembourg court suspended a €746,000 fine the US retailer had to pay each day as part of its fight with the Grand Duchy data protection regulator over suspected data privacy breaches.

Luxembourg's National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) hit Amazon with a record €746 million fine in July, saying that "Amazon’s processing of personal data did not comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation," (GDPR), according to a regulatory filing by Amazon in the US.

On top of the fine, which Amazon is currently appealing, the CNPD also ordered the company - whose European headquarters are located in Luxembourg  - to pay €746,000 a day until it had rectified the gaps noted by the regulator.

But the president of Luxembourg’s Administrative Court on Friday ruled to suspend the daily payments, saying the watchdog's instructions on how to correct the breaches were too vague, the court said in a press release.

Luxembourg’s court will next year rule on Amazon’s appeal to pay the €746 million fine, with a number of hearings between the two parties still ongoing. GDPR legislation empowers national data regulators to levy penalties of as much as 4% of a company’s annual revenue.

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