Soon after Mark Zuckerberg co -found Facebook in his Harvard track in 2004, the social network flew in popularity. About ten years later the company experienced another round of explosive growth after buying its smaller rivals Instagram and WhatsAppIt strengthens its place in social media.
On Monday, Judge James Boasberg from the US District Court for the Columbia district will consider a marginal monopoly case concerning a company called a meta- that depends on the new legal issue: did it violate the law to remain the dominant acquisition of initial enterprises that stood in their journey?
Case – Federal commercial commission v. Meta platform – For the first time, he will try to stretch the theory of US antimonopoly law to include what the regulators call the “Buy or buried” strategy. Meta violated the law by acquiring binding competitors to maintain their monopoly in social networks, says FTC. Regulatory bodies seek to force a meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta faced the fact that they were facing great competition in the social media from Tiktok, Snap, Reddit and LinkedIn, and that the regulatory bodies at that time approved the acquisitions. Also, the company did not give up the settlement of the case: At the beginning of this month, Mr. Zuckerberg was in the White House to try to convince Trump’s administration to avert the court.
As a result of what is expected to be a multiweek court proceedings, the first main technical case prosecuted by Trump administration could transform the US antitrust landscape because companies face intensive inspection and acquisitions. The government’s victory could also have the ripple on Silicon Valley, where start -ups for lucrative acquisitions of larger payout companies.
Nevertheless, FTC is facing a battle uphill to prove their case, legal experts said. The legal argument of the government depends on the fact that the meta will not be so dominant, and it would not remain so dominant if he did not receive Instagram and WhatsApp – a hypothetical situation that is difficult to prove because many factors played in the growth.
“This is a critical test reason whether the antimonopoly laws can be used to release mergers designed to remove the improved competition,” said Gene Kimmelman, a former higher official in the antimonopoly division of the Ministry of Justice. “The government’s victory would give consumers more options and opportunities to switch across social media platforms without having to be on Facebook.”
The Court has bipartisan support and is part of the most aggressive efforts for trustworthy regulatory bodies from a gilded age, when Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple face questions about their power to control the ways to buy, seek information and communicate.
Last year, the Ministry of Justice won a anti -monopolous action against Google to monopolize Internet search and a court that determines how to correct the monopoly on April 21.
Apple also sued before the claims that its fixed system and software system makes it difficult for consumers to leave. And FTC sued Amazon and accused her of illegal monopoly protection in online retail retail. These cases are expected to be in court next year.
The technical industry is carefully monitored by the META court, one of the first major signals of how aggressively the President Trump can repair in the strongest technology companies. The case was created under his first administration, before handover in 2021, President of FTC Lina Khan, denominator Biden, who pointed out her efforts to break technical monopoly.
Now Andrew Ferguson, Mr. Trump, decided the agency, took a baton. Warned against the concentrated power held by the meta. It is also motivated by a shared Republican view that technological platforms have censored content, especially conservative voices.
“We do not intend to take off the foot from the gas,” said Mr. Ferguson in an interview Last month with Bloomberg.
For meta, even the idea of Hisving off from Instagram and WhatsApp alarming. The company bought Instagram for $ 1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $ 19 billion in 2014. At the time of shops, the applications were small – Instagram had only 30 million users and 13 employees, while WhatsApp had 450 million users and 50 employees. Since then, both have become critical for meta, with faster growth and user -friendly than Facebook.
The court is expected to represent about seven hours of testimony of Mr. Zuckerberg, who will be a star witness, along with the former operating director of Meta Sheryl Sandberg and the founder of Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta has an army of the most expensive and experienced judges who argue their defense, led by Mark C. Hansen, partner Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. Meta plans to say that a quick rise in the Tiktok video web site shows especially healthy market competition.
“We are convinced that the evidence in court will show that Instagram and WhatsApp’s acquisitions were good for competition and consumers,” said Chris Sgro, Meta spokesman. “The Commission incorrectly claims that no agreement is ever final and businesses can be punished for innovation.”
For the first time, FTC sued Meta in December 2020, along with a similar indictment, which brought 46 states. The legal argument of the agency depends on section 2 of the antimonopoleic Act of 1890, which specifies that it is illegal to maintain a monopoly using anticophetical practices – in this case, obtaining bonus companies as a strategy to eliminate them as competitive.
To support our case, FTC plans to present 2008 e -mail from Mr. Zuckerberg and said, “It is better to buy than to compete” to 2012, who wrote that his motivation to buy Instagram was “neutral (Izing) potential competitor”.
Judge Boasberg, who was locked in a disputed judicial battle with Trump’s administration on the use of a powerful war status for the summary deport of Venezuelan migrants, decides. During the recent preliminary tutorial, the judge said he had never had a personal account on Facebook or Instagram.
Judge Boasberg rejected the initial FTC case in June 2021 and said that the agency needed to provide stronger definitions for the social media market and how the meta came to monopolize. In January 2022 he accepted the re -confirmed version of the case, but warned that it was not far from slamming.
Judge Boasberg said in a decision against the META’s proposal for the rejection of the case last year that FTC “faces harsh questions about whether his claims can withstand in the court of court”.
“His positions sometimes stressed creaking antitrust precedents of this country to their limits,” he added.
Legal experts argue that the case will be difficult to prove, because it depends on the determination of intentions by managers more than ten years ago, during a very different internet age. At that time, the agreements were approved by regulatory bodies and the years of integration between applications mean that they share many of the same internal systems and data – which is a challenging breakup.
“He asks the judge to decide whether the meta has tried to kill a competition or be lucky and make a good bet,” said Jennifer Huddleston, head of Cato Institute, Think Tank. “It is assuming a contraval that we cannot know.”
