New York: Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, will face trial in April over allegations by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were aimed at eliminating competition. Judge James Boasberg in Washington scheduled the trial for April 14, marking a critical phase in the case that dates back to the Trump administration.
The FTC filed the lawsuit in 2020, accusing Meta, then known as Facebook, of violating antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in personal social networking. The commission argues that Meta deliberately overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to neutralize emerging rivals, rather than competing fairly in the burgeoning mobile ecosystem.
Earlier this month, Judge Boasberg dismissed Meta’s request to throw out the case, rejecting its argument that the lawsuit narrowly defines the social media market and disregards competition from platforms like ByteDance’s TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, X, and Microsoft’s LinkedIn.
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Despite allowing the case to proceed, Boasberg acknowledged the FTC faces significant challenges. “Time and technological change pose serious challenges to the Commission’s market definition,” he said in a Nov. 13 ruling. He added that the FTC’s claims “strain this country’s creaking antitrust precedents to their limits.”
The trial is set to examine whether Meta’s mergers were anti-competitive and, if so, could lead to the unwinding of the deals—a decision that could reshape the tech landscape.
