WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expected to file on Thursday its amended complaint against Facebook, accusing it of breaking antitrust law.
The agency had filed a lawsuit in December that accused Facebook of breaking antitrust law to keep smaller competitors at bay by snapping up rivals such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
The agency had asked the court to order Facebook to sell Instagram, which it bought in 2012 for $1 billion, and WhatsApp, which it bought in 2014 for $19 billion.
Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in June that the FTC’s original complaint failed to provide evidence that Facebook had monopoly power in the social-networking market.
The judge also criticized portions of the FTC’s case regarding Facebook’s refusal to allow interoperability permissions with competing apps, saying that the implementation of the policy may be unlawful but that the FTC’s examples were from 2013 and thus too old for the court to consider them, among other criticisms.
He said that the FTC could file a new complaint by July 29 but the deadline was extended to August 19.
Boasberg had also dismissed a lawsuit against Facebook filed by multiple U.S. states, saying they waited too long to challenge the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The states have indicated that they will appeal.
The federal government and states filed a total of five lawsuits against Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google last year following bipartisan outrage over their social media clout in the economy and the political sphere.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Mark Porter)
