TapTechNews June 5 - According to a report by Bloomberg, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stated in a lawsuit filing that Meta concealed information during the preliminary review of the federal regulatory agency for the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The lawsuit aims to split this social network giant.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, acquired the photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging app WhatsApp in 2014. The FTC conducted an in-depth review of the acquisition of Instagram and only a simple 30-day review of the acquisition of WhatsApp.
In 2020, the antitrust agency sued Meta, alleging that it monopolized the personal social network market by acquiring emerging competitors. Meta sought to have this case dismissed before trial, arguing that it had invested billions of dollars in these applications and the FTC should not reverse its previous approval of the mergers.
The FTC said that this case involves information that Meta has in its files but was not provided during the initial review. At that time, at the request of Meta, the FTC only conducted a limited review of these transactions, and now the FTC has more evidence, including pre-acquisition documents that Meta did not provide in 2012 and 2014.
This is not the first time that the regulator has accused Meta of failing to provide information that may affect the initial merger review. In 2017, the European antitrust regulator fined Meta 110 million euros (TapTechNews note: currently about 867 million yuan) for providing misleading information in the WhatsApp transaction.