Facebook’s Move To Kill Monopoly Lawsuit Gets U.S. Reaction

Facebook Inc. made moves to get the monopoly fight against it thrown out even before it started. But it received a push back from the Federal Trade Commission. The commission urged the judge handling the agency’s antitrust lawsuit to reject the social-media company’s request to dismiss it.

The lawsuit claimed that Facebook holds monopoly power over personal social networking in the U.S. and maintains it by “acquiring competitive threats and hindering the emergence of rivals,” the FCT said in a filing late Wednesday in Washington federal court.

The filing is a response to Facebook’s argument last month to have its federal antitrust suits by the FTC and state attorneys general thrown out, arguing that enforcers failed to show it has a monopoly and waited too long to challenge its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp by trying to unwind acquisitions that won regulatory approval years ago.

READ ALSO: Facebook Kicks Out 'Voice Of Trump' From Platform

Facebook owns and controls Instagram, WhatsApp, and is doing all it can to defeat the government’s attempt to force a breakup.

The FTC argues that Facebook is trying to get the fight thrown out “before it even begins.” The company’s “repeated observation” that the agency could have challenged the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions earlier is irrelevant, according to the filing.

“Congress has explicitly provided that the FTC need not challenge an acquisition at its first opportunity to do so,” the FTC said in the filing. “Instead, the FTC can challenge an acquisition at any time, under any provision of law.”

READ ALSO: Facebook Updates News Feeds To Give Users More Control

New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a similar antitrust lawsuit filed by U.S. states. In a filing opposing Facebook’s request for dismissal of that case, James argued that the company’s conduct harmed hundreds of millions of the states’ residents

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook, 20-cv-03590, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).