Amazon is disputing its status as a big online platform that needs to face stricter scrutiny under European Union digital rules taking effect next month, the first Silicon Valley tech giant to push back on the pioneering new standards.

The online retailer filed a legal challenge with a top European Union court, arguing it’s being treated unfairly by being designated a “very large online platform” under the 27-nation bloc’s sweeping Digital Services Act.

Amazon, whose filing to the European General Court was made available Tuesday, is the second company to protest the classification. German online retailer Zalando filed a legal claim two weeks ago with a similar argument.

The Digital Services Act imposes new obligations on the biggest tech companies to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, with violations punishable by potentially billions in fines or even a ban on operating in the EU.

The rules, which will take effect on Aug. 25, are expected to help Europe maintain its place as standard setter in global efforts to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms.

Seattle-based Amazon is one of 19 companies classed as the largest online platforms and search engines under the DSA, which means they will have to better police their services to protect European users from hate speech, disinformation and other harmful online content.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, declined to comment directly on the case, saying it would defend its position in court.

A French court on Monday acquitted Airbus and Air France of manslaughter charges over the 2009 crash of Flight 447 from Rio to Paris, which killed 228 people and led to lasting changes in aircraft safety measures.

Sobs broke out in the courtroom as the presiding judge read out the decision, a devastating defeat for victims’ families who fought for 13 years to see the case reach court.

The three-judge panel ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence of a direct link between decisions by the companies and the crash. The official investigation found that multiple factors contributed to the disaster, including pilot error and the icing over of external sensors called pitot tubes.

“We are sickened. The court is telling us, ‘go on, there’s not a problem here, there’s nothing to see,’” said Danièle Lamy, who lost her son Eric in the crash and heads an association for families of victims.

“For the powerful, impunity reigns. Centuries pass, and nothing changes,” she said. “The families of victims are mortified and in total disarray.”

While the court didn’t find the companies guilty of criminal wrongdoing, the judges said that Airbus and Air France held civil responsibility for the damages caused by the crash, and ordered them to compensate families of victims. It didn’t provide an overall amount, but scheduled hearings in September to work that out.

Air France has already compensated families of those killed, who came from 33 countries. Families from around the world are among the plaintiffs, including many in Brazil.

The two-month trial left families wracked with anger and disappointment. Unusually, even state prosecutors argued for acquittal, saying that the proceedings didn’t produce enough proof of criminal wrongdoing by the companies.

The United Nations’ top court on Thursday rejected Tehran’s legal bid to free up some $2 billion in Iranian central bank assets frozen by U.S. authorities to be paid in compensation to victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran.

In a 10-5 majority ruling, the International Court of Justice said it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the Iranian claim linked to the central Markazi Bank.

The world court’s vice-president, Kirill Gevorgian, said the majority “upholds the objection to jurisdiction raised by the United States of America relating to the claims of the Islamic Republic of Iran” related to the bank.

In a complex, 67-page judgment, the world court also found that some other U.S. moves to seize assets of Iran and Iranians in the United States breached a 1955 treaty between the countries and said they should negotiate compensation. If they fail to reach a number, they will have to return to the Hague-based court for a ruling.

But the largest part of the case focused on Bank Markazi, and its frozen assets of $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, that are held in a Citibank account in New York. The court said that it did not have jurisdiction based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity because the protections it offers do not extend to central banks.

Teams of lawyers present for both countries at Thursday’s hearing did not comment on the ruling.

At hearings last year, Iran cast the asset freeze as an attempt to destabilize the Tehran government and a violation of international law.

Iran took its claim to the world court in 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that money belonging to Iran’s central bank could be used as compensation for the 241 American troops who died in the 1983 bombing, which was believed to be linked to Tehran.

The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Ukraine can go to trial to try to avoid repaying $3 billion in loans it said it took under pressure from Russia in 2013 to prevent it from trying to join the European Union.

The court rejected an attempt to avoid a trial by a British company acting on Russia’s behalf to collect the loans. Ukraine said it borrowed the money while facing the threat of military force and massive illegal economic and political pressure nearly a decade before Russia invaded its neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the ruling was “another decisive victory against the aggressor.”

“The Court has ruled that Ukraine’s defense based on Russia’s threats of aggression will have a full public trial,” he tweeted. “Justice will be ours.”

The case was argued in November 2021, and the court was not asked to consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three months later.

Ukrainian authorities allege that the corrupt government of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych borrowed the money from Moscow under pressure before he was ousted in protests in February 2014, shortly before Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

After the 2014 Ukraine revolution, the country’s new government refused to repay the debt in December 2015, saying Moscow wouldn’t agree to terms already accepted by other international creditors.

The case came to British courts because London-based Law Debenture Trust Corp. had been appointed by Ukraine to represent the interests of bondholders. The company initially won a judgment to avoid trial but Ukraine appealed.

The Supreme Court rejected several of Ukraine’s legal arguments, including that its finance minister didn’t have authority to enter into the loan agreement and that Ukraine could decline payment as a countermeasure to Russia’s aggressions.

The ruling, however, said a court could consider whether the deal was void because of threats or pressure that are illegitimate under English law.

While the court noted that trade sanctions, embargoes and other economic pressures are “normal aspects of statecraft,” economic pressures could provide context to prove that Russia’s threats to destroy Ukraine caused it to issue the bonds.

President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are set to outline a plan Friday that the White House hopes will turn the page on a spat between the U.S. and European Union over electric vehicle tax credits.

Biden and von der Leyen are expected to agree to open negotiations between the U.S. and the EU on a deal that could boost the use of European minerals critical in the production of electric vehicle batteries that are eligible for U.S. tax credits through Biden’s roughly $375 billion clean energy law that passed last year.

“We do hope to be able to come out of this meeting able to launch some negotiations on a trade agreement on critical minerals as well as a dialogue on subsidy transparency,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Biden and von der Leyen are also expected to use their Oval Office meeting to discuss Western coordination to support Ukraine in the war against Russia, joint efforts to decrease Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and the Biden administration’s growing concerns that China is considering providing weaponry to Russia for use in the war.

Kirbcommit to a deadline for finalizing negotiations on the global arrangement on sustainable steel and aluminum,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday.

Travelers whose package tours were ruined by the imposition of restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic may be entitled to at least a partial refund, the European Union’s highest court said Thursday.

The European Court of Justice weighed in after being asked for its opinion by a court in Germany.

The Munich court is considering the case of two people who bought a two-week package vacation for the Spanish island of Gran Canaria starting on March 13, 2020, just as the pandemic hit Europe. They are seeking a 70% reduction in the price because of restrictions that were imposed there two days later and their early return.

When the restrictions were imposed on March 15, beaches were closed, a curfew put in place and the plaintiffs were allowed to leave their hotel room only to eat, the EU court said. On March 18, they were told to be ready to leave at any moment, and two days after that they had to return to Germany.

The tour operator refused the requested reduction on the grounds that it couldn’t be held liable for a “general life risk.”

The EU court found that “a traveler is entitled to a reduction in the price of his or her package where a lack of conformity of the travel services included in the package is due to restrictions that have been imposed at the travel destination to fight the spread of an infectious disease, such as COVID-19.”

It said it doesn’t matter if similar restrictions are imposed at the traveler’s place of residence or in other countries.

German lawmakers on Thursday approved a free-trade deal between the European Union and Canada, moving the accord a step closer to taking full effect.

The pact, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, was signed in late 2016. Most of its terms have been implemented provisionally since 2017, but the parliaments of the EU’s 27 member nations must ratify the deal for -it to come fully into force.

Chancellor OIaf Scholz’s three-party coalition moved forward with ratifying it after Germany’s highest court in March rejected complaints against CETA, at least in the form in which it is currently in effect.

Lawmakers voted 559-110 to approve the pact.

Another 11 EU countries have yet to ratify the deal, Verena Hubertz, a lawmaker with Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, told parliament’s lower house before the vote.

“We are optimistic, now that we are moving forward, that others will also follow very quickly,” she said. “But of course ... this is much too long and much too slow in a globalized world that turns quickly.”

Hubertz said Germany had to wait for the court verdict and added that “we have eliminated concerns” about details of a dispute mechanism built into the pact. Conservative opposition lawmakers argued that little or nothing has actually changed and charged that the center-left had held up ratification for ideological reasons.

The deal eliminates almost all customs duties and increases quotas for certain key products in Canada and the EU’s respective markets. The EU has said the agreement will save its companies some 600 million euros ($623 million) a year in duties.