The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

Facebook sues EU antitrust regulator for excessive data requests.  Facebook is suing EU antitrust regulators for seeking information beyond what is necessary, including highly personal details, for their investigations into the company’s data and marketplace, the U.S. social media group said. Facebook has been under EU competition enforcers’ scrutiny since last year, with one investigation focused on its trove of data and the other on its online marketplace launched in 2016 and used by 800 million Facebook users in 70 countries to buy and sell items. The company has since then provided 315,000 documents equivalent to 1.7 million pages to the Commission.

U.S. closes antitrust probe into London Stock Exchange Group acquisition of Refinitiv.  The U.S. Justice Department has closed its antitrust investigation into the London Stock Exchange Group’s acquisition of financial markets data firm Refinitiv, saying it would not harm competition or American consumers, the bureau said in a statement on Friday. The agreement on the approximately $27 billion acquisition was announced last August.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg skewered with internal emails during antitrust hearing.  Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg stumbled at a congressional hearing on alleged abuse of market power on Wednesday, as lawmakers confronted the social media titan with damaging internal emails about the company’s acquisitions. The House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel appeared to draw on a rich trove of Facebook company emails, releasing numerous screenshots of correspondence from Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives. Using the exchanges, lawmakers got Zuckerberg to acknowledge that he saw photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp as competitors when Facebook acquired them.

Tagged in: Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust Litigation, International Competition Issues,