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Meta wins FTC lawsuit: Judge rejects monopoly claim over Instagram and WhatsApp
The ruling defeats the FTC's 2020 lawsuit, which accused Meta of a "buy or bury" strategy to stifle emerging competitors following the $1 billion Instagram acquisition in 2012 and the $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014.
A federal judge has delivered a significant victory to Meta Platforms Inc., ruling that the company did not violate US antitrust laws through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
US District Judge James Boasberg, in an 89-page decision, rejected the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) attempt to force Meta to divest the popular applications. The judge found that the FTC failed to prove that Meta holds a monopoly in the social networking market, citing robust competition from rivals such as TikTok, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter).
The ruling defeats the FTC's 2020 lawsuit, which accused Meta of a "buy or bury" strategy to stifle emerging competitors following the $1 billion Instagram acquisition in 2012 and the $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014.
Judge Boasberg sided with Meta's argument that the acquisitions provided necessary resources to the nascent apps and that the social media landscape has dramatically shifted toward entertainment and video content. This decision marks a setback for broader US government efforts to unwind past tech mergers, though antitrust cases against other tech giants, including Google, Amazon, and Apple, continue with mixed results.
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