Anti-Competition: US regulator re-files antitrust lawsuit against Facebook

*The Federal Trade Commission claims Facebook ‘lured’ app developers to its platform, carefully watched them for signs of success, and then ‘buried’ them when they became competitive threats to the company

*The global tech giant alleges the regulator is attempting to re-write antitrust law

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

For allegedly resorting to illegal activities to maintain its market dominance, the United States (US) Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has re-filed its antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.

The regulator has cited in the suit more detailed evidence of how it believes the technology company uses its social media dominance to engage in anti-competitive behaviour.

ConsumerConnect gathered the American regulatory agency filed an amended complaint Thursday, August 19, 2021, after a judge had dismissed its original complaint late June this year.

The newly-filed lawsuit is 80 pages, and goes into more extensive detail than the first, earlier filed December 2020.

Agency report indicates the new filing claims that after repeated failed attempts to develop innovative mobile features for its network, Facebook instead resorted to illegal activities to maintain its dominance in the cyberspace.

The Commission’s lawyers also claim Facebook performed an alleged “buy or bury” scheme, unlawfully acquiring innovative competitors with popular mobile features that were better than Facebook’s own offerings.

The FTC complaint further claims that Facebook “lured” app developers to its platform, carefully watched them for signs of success, and then “buried” them when they became competitive threats.

Why FTC latest action?

The Federal Trade Commission purported that “Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile.

“After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat.”

Holly Vedova, Acting Director of FTC Bureau of Competition, compared the alleged action to bribing emerging app competitors not to compete.

“The antitrust laws were enacted to prevent precisely this type of illegal activity by monopolists,” Vedova said.

Facebook reacts

In its response to the allegations, however, Facebook dismissed the FTC’s claims as “an effort to rewrite antitrust laws” and upend settled expectations of merger review.

It said it has always abided by the law.

The company was quoted in a Twitter post to have stated “it is unfortunate that despite the court’s dismissal of the complaint and conclusion that it lacked the basis for a claim, the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless lawsuit.”

On June 28, a Federal Judge dismissed two antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, saying the FTC and a number of states failed to make their case that the social media giant is a monopoly.

US District Judge James Boasberg ruled that prosecutors had failed to explain what social networking is or how they determined that Facebook controls more than 60 percent of the market, report said.

Boasberg also stated that the FTC had failed to show how Facebook’s business model harms consumers.

The public pays nothing to use Facebook, the Judge said.

The agency, nonetheless, disclosed that it seeks to tell ‘a more complete story’ about why it believes Facebook is an illegal monopolistic force.

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