A high-stakes antitrust trial against Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, ETR:FB2A, SWX:FB) is getting underway in Washington, with US regulators seeking to undo the company’s blockbuster acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accuses Meta, which owns Facebook, of buying out rising rivals to secure its dominance in the social media space.
The FTC originally signed off on Meta’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.
Now, the watchdog says those deals were part of a strategy to stamp out competition. If it wins, Meta could be forced to spin off the two platforms, a move that would mark one of the most significant breakups of a US tech company in decades.
The case hinges in part on internal emails, including one where Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg reportedly wrote it was “better to buy than to compete”.
Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust professor at Vanderbilt Law School, told the BBC those words may be pivotal: “It’s hard to get more literal than that.”