https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180503/10121939772/irish-judge-slaps-down-facebooks-attempt-to-halt-eus-top-court-examining-legality-sending-personal-data-to-us.shtml

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the Irish High Court referring to the EU's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), eleven questions concerning the legality of personal data transfer across the Atlantic.The questions were prompted by a case brought by the privacy expert Max Schrems challenging Facebook's data transfers. When the Irish High Court judge indicated that she intended to make an order for a so-called "preliminary ruling" by the CJEU -- that is, one which addresses the fundamental legal questions raised by the case -- Facebook applied for a stay in order to appeal against the judge's decision at other, higher Irish courts. That's hardly surprising: Facebook's business model depends on being able to move sensitive user data around as it wishes. If both Privacy Shield and the "Standard Contractual Clauses" (SCCs) are ruled illegal, then Facebook -- and many other companies -- will have big problems. Given the danger, it's no wonder that Facebook is trying everything it can to prevent the CJEU from answering those questions.

Considering Facebook's application, the same High Court judge who had made the reference to the CJEU explained that in her view (pdf) there is no right to appeal against that request for clarification under Irish law. However, she went on to consider what the relative harms to each party would be if she were in fact wrong on this matter, and came down firmly in favor of Schrems: