ROME – A judicial panel in Rome has overturned a substantial 15-million-euro penalty ($17 million) that Italian privacy regulators had levied against OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that created ChatGPT, according to court documents released Thursday.
The court has not yet provided detailed reasoning behind its decision to reverse the financial penalty.
In response to the favorable ruling, OpenAI expressed satisfaction with the outcome. “We welcome the decision by the Court of Rome. We’ve always been committed to respecting user privacy and look forward to helping more Italian people, businesses and society benefit from AI,” the company stated.
Italy’s data protection agency, called the Garante, chose not to provide any public response to the court’s decision.
The substantial monetary penalty had been levied in December 2024 following accusations that the AI chatbot improperly handled users’ personal information. OpenAI had criticized the punishment as excessive and announced plans to challenge it through the legal system.
Earlier in March 2025, the same Rome court had placed a temporary hold on the fine while considering the full legal challenge.
