Facebook has asked a US court for eight documents created by the US Federal Trade Commission as part of their review of the company's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, which the agency allowed to go forward.
Facebook has asked a US court for eight documents created by
the US Federal Trade Commission as part of their review of the company's
purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, which the agency allowed to go forward.
The request was made late on Tuesday and comes in a lawsuit
filed by the FTC that has asked the court to order both of those deals undone.
Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion
in 2014.
The FTC sued Meta's Facebook in 2020, during the Trump
administration, alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain its
social network monopoly.
Facebook is fighting the lawsuit, and wants the materials as
part of that fight.
"Both the Instagram and the WhatsApp documents are
almost certain to reveal that the FTC determined that each acquisition was
unlikely to lessen competition or harm consumers," Facebook said in its
filing.
The company argued that the FTC had given the documents to
the House Judiciary Committee when it probed the tech giants, also including
Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Apple. Current FTC Chair Lina Khan was on the
staff of that committee.
"Any claim of privilege was waived when the FTC chose
to voluntarily share the documents with House Judiciary Committee members and
staff," Facebook said.
The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment
on the filing.
Among the documents being requested are the memos that the
FTC Bureau of Competition and Bureau of Economics wrote for commissioners about
whether the Instagram deal should be allowed to close. Meta is also asking for
notes made by Bureau of Competition personnel about the WhatsApp transaction. ©
Reuters
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