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Acquisitions · Antitrust · FTC · Meta
Legal expert James Ward predicts Meta will prevail in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit, which alleges the tech giant engaged in unfair trade practices by acquiring Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
The FTC claims Meta pursued a "buy or bury" strategy to eliminate competition and maintain monopoly power in the personal social networking market, citing internal emails from Mark Zuckerberg. Meta's defense argues it operates in a highly competitive market, including rivals like TikTok, YouTube, and X, and that its acquisitions fostered growth and benefited consumers.
Zuckerberg's testimony emphasized intense competition from TikTok, challenging the FTC's narrow market definition. Ward believes the FTC's case is weak due to the difficulty in narrowly defining the social media market, the significant 10+ year time gap since the acquisitions, and the FTC's prior approval of both deals.
If Meta were to lose, it would face forced spin-offs of Instagram and WhatsApp, unwinding technical integrations, and impacting 50% of its US revenue, setting a substantial precedent for the broader tech industry.
