Facebook Moves to dismiss The US government’s antitrust Case
“ We believe the government should be denied the do-over it seeks”.
Erin Scott/ Reuters
The antitrust law suits were brought by the Federal Trade Commission and State attorneys general in the late last December by saying that the tech giant is involved in anti-competitive behavior. So on 11th March Facebook files to dismiss both FTC lawsuits, arguing that government enforcers have no valid basis for alleging the social media giant is suppressing the competition.
The case was explained that Facebook bought WhatsApp and Instagram to neutralize the threat posed by these two apps to the company’s business.
Additionally, the attorney general accused Facebook of using its market dominance to crack down on the growth of the competing services.
The FTC cases also include the point in which they call for the courts to unwind Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp into two separate companies once again.
Facebook Reasons for dismissing the case
In seeking to dismiss the commission’s case the company said, “this two apply ignores the reality of the dynamic, intensely competitive high-tech industry in which Facebook operates”.
The company said d the government was seeking a “do-over”. Facebook filed motions to dismiss both cases.
Facebook wrote “Antitrust laws are intended to promote competition and protect consumers,”
Facebook said in a blog post, “ These Complaints do not incredibly claim that our conduct harmed either”.
Facebook also argues that the commission does not have sufficient sources or grounds so it can’t reverse the decision about the Facebook acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.
Look what Facebook’s files exactly said about this argument “ Facebook is aware of no comparable, much less successful, challenged by the FTC to a long-completed acquisition that the FTC itself cleared”.
The FTC allegations on Facebook
The FTC and the states allege the Facebook buy companies like messaging app WhatsApp and photo-sharing platform Instagram, rather than competing with them.
The FTC allowed Facebook to buy these apps previously but at the same time argued that time had shown Facebook used the deals to entrench a monopoly position. This petition filed against Facebook also says that a lack of competitors to Facebook has led to consumer harm, including by weakening the privacy policies.
The FTC totally declined the comment of Facebook on Wednesday. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that “Facebook is wrong on the law and wrong on our complaint”.
MS. James asserted in a statement “We are confident in our case, which is why almost every state in this nation has joined our bipartisan lawsuit to end Facebook’s illegal conduct”.
Conclusion
The FTC and the states reserved their point of view that those acquisitions have served to eliminate the rising, independent tech firms whose popularity could become the important Facebook rivals.
If the commission’s case becomes successful, it could potentially lead Facebook to unwind those acquisition deals.
The states and the Attorney General focused not only on acquisition cases but also alleged Facebook was involved in other illegal conduct of anticompetitive behavior by cutting off access to its platform for third-party developers.
In response to all allegations, Facebook argued that the Attorney General did not have strong legal standing to bring that case on the behalf of their citizens.
