Facebook says the antitrust lawsuits aimed at the company’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp should be rejected. The company issued its first official response to the antitrust charges of the Federal Trade Commission and 46 state attorney generals, saying the government was seeking a “recast”. Facebook has filed a motion to close both cases.
In a statement, the company said that none of the lawsuits constituted a credible antitrust case. “Antitrust laws are designed to promote competition and protect consumers,” wrote Facebook. “These complaints also do not claim that our conduct has harmed.” The answer came three months after the company was hit by antitrust charges from the FTC and state attorney generals.
Both cases claim that Facebook engaged in anti-competitive behavior and that its agreements to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp were aimed at neutralizing companies that it considered a threat. Facebook said this represented a turning point, as both acquisitions were examined and approved by the FTC years ago.
In a new lawsuit, Facebook’s lawyers say the FTC “has not alleged facts equivalent to a plausible antitrust case” and that the accusations come amid an “environment fraught with ruthless criticism of Facebook for issues totally unrelated to antitrust issues. ” Regarding the case of state GAs, Facebook says that states “have no legitimacy to open the case” and that “they waited too long to act”. In its motion to dismiss state charges, Facebook referred to the states’ case as “later allegations”.
In addition to his acquisitions, both cases also pointed to Facebook’s platform policies and how it treated third-party developers. The state case and the FTC lawsuit questioned Facebook’s treatment of Twitter-owned Vine, which saw its access to the Facebook API cut in 2013 in a decision that was approved by Mark Zuckerberg. In their motion to close the FTC case, Facebook’s lawyers said the company “was under no obligation to make its platform available to any other application”.
The FTC and state AGs have until April to respond to Facebook’s requests to resign. How Wall Street Newspaper points, in fact, to get the charges dismissed before a trial requires Facebook to “meet a high legal standard” that can be difficult to clear. Even if that happened, a layoff would hardly be the end of Facebook’s antitrust problems. The company also faces an antitrust investigation by Congress and European Union regulators.