Facebook's Acquisition Of Instagram And Whatsapp Is Back In Question By The US Antimonopoly Commission

JAKARTA - US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, who has promised tougher antitrust enforcement, said she would not rule out a settlement with Facebook from Meta Platform Inc., which the agency sued in 2020. But she indicated there were high limits to the deal. any.

In an interview on Tuesday, June 7, he also criticized what he said were a large number of clearly illegal deals and added he was not a fan of deals to fix problematic mergers with asset sales. He also disliked behavioral fixes, when Facebook promised certain policy changes over a number of years.

Under former President Donald Trump, the FTC sued Facebook in December 2020 alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain its monopoly on the social network.

Asked about a possible settlement, Khan said: "We have provided the assistance we think is necessary. I think you can calculate for yourself the likelihood that Facebook will accept some of that assistance."

Reuters reported that the FTC had asked a judge to order Facebook to cancel its acquisitions of Instagram, in 2012, and WhatsApp in 2014.

"But of course, as an agency, we're always thinking about, you know, conserving resources, how to think about a settlement, the trade-off with pursuing litigation, but this is a very important issue for the agency, and we are. We're serious about the help we seek, said Khan.

He is also critical of companies bringing mergers to governments that they know cannot win antitrust approvals.

"We see companies proposing illegal and illegal mergers at a very high rate," he said, adding that companies often find out that their deals violate the law and then propose improvements.

"I think that's the wrong approach. I think we really need to promote an environment where parties come to us with clean deals, not with deals that break the law," Khan added.

According to him, behavioral improvements, such as placing firewalls among certain sectors of a company, do not address the underlying problem.