Meta Platforms Inc. will face a somewhat scaled-back antitrust trial over its alleged dominance of social networking after a federal judge threw out some allegations by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, but the heart of the case remains.
In a brief order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said he was narrowing one of the FTC’s claims. He accepted Meta’s arguments that some of its restrictions on its Facebook platform had legitimate business justifications.
But the judge rejected the company’s main contention — that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were good for consumers and not an effort to dominate the personal social-networking market. Boasberg left that issue to be decided at trial. He also ruled in favor of the FTC that Meta can’t argue at trial that it needed the acquisitions to compete against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
The lawsuit, filed in 2020, is one of two by the first Trump administration aimed at curtailing the power of the largest U.S. tech platforms.
Meta said its defense is strong.
“We are confident that the evidence at trial will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in a statement, adding that the FTC “is wrongly continuing to assert that no deal is ever truly final, and businesses can be punished for innovating.”
The FTC said the case will protect innovation.
“This case, which began under President Trump and was refined during the Biden administration, represents a bipartisan effort to curtail Meta’s monopoly power and restore competition to ensure freedom and innovation in the social media ecosystem,” FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said in a statement.
In April, Meta asked Boasberg to dismiss the FTC’s suit outright, without a trial, arguing that the agency can’t prove consumers would be better off without its acquisitions of the two apps.
In its suit, the antitrust agency alleged that the company illegally dominated the U.S. personal social-networking market by buying up emerging rivals.
The judge is to schedule a trial date at a hearing this month.
The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms Inc., 20-cv-03590, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
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