A hard blow for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the American agency that monitors anti-competitive practices. A judge just denied his request to block Meta’s acquisition of virtual reality (VR) company Within.
An operation that consolidates Meta’s monopoly in the field of VR, according to the FTC
The Silicon Valley giant has announced its ambition to acquire Within in October 2021 for an amount that was not disclosed. Indeed, Meta now focuses much more on virtual and augmented reality formats, with the aim of developing the metaverse, the future iteration of the Internet.
The FTC quickly took an interest in the operation and decided to start a procedure to block it in July 2022. According to the agency, the latter will extend Meta’s dominance into the consumer virtual reality market, in which Meta has invested a lot of its resources in recent years. The FTC highlighted Meta’s previous merger with the company behind the wildly popular game Beat Saber in 2019, saying in a hearing in December that adding inside would remove a “ profitable rivalry between the two companies. As a reminder, Mark Zuckerberg’s company also bought Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion.
Under the aegis of Lina Khan, an ardent opponent of the practices of the tech giants, the FTC wishes to fight them more ferociously. In this direction, it strengthened the Commission’s ability to fight unfair monopolies. However, you have just suffered a bitter failure.
FTC HQ in Washington DC Photograph: Federal Trade Commission.
Hit the FTC
Meta appealed the FTC proceedings and had agreed to extend the deadline for completion of its acquisition to January 31, 2023. California judge Edward Davila just ruled in the company’s favor by filing a sealed decision rejecting the FTC’s request to take steps to block the transaction.
Second The limit, the agency has faced internal disagreements over whether to intervene in the Meta and Within deal. ” Out of compliance with court orders, the FTC is unable to comment at this time. said Douglas Farrar, director of public affairs for the FTC. For your part, Meta still has to wait to conclude the agreement, because the Commission must now decide what you want to do. You have the right to appeal this decision..
If the order is maintained, it would be a crushing defeat for Lina Khan, especially since the FTC is also trying to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The battle promises to be very difficult to limit the consolidation of the tech industry, despite persistent attempts by regulators.
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