'Legally insufficient': US judge dismisses antitrust lawsuits against Facebook

In a  major win for the social media giant Facebook, a US federal judge has dismissed antitrust lawsuits against the firm that were filed by the United States government along with at least 40 states. As per reports, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on June 28 granted the social media network’s requests to dismiss lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general in December. The dismissals of the antitrust lawsuits came in a pair of rulings before any pretrial proceedings that had progressed. Further, the judge also said that the officials failed to “plausibly” establish that the social network had created a monopoly. 

The antitrust lawsuits could have rolled back Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and the messaging platform WhatsApp. As per reports, the judge in a 53-page opinion said that it “failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element... that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for personal social networking services.” However, he allowed authorities the opportunity to refile the case that the federal lawsuit

Through the lawsuits, the US and state officials had called for the divestment of Instagram and WhatsApp arguing that the tech giant had acted “entrench and maintain its monopoly to deny consumers the benefits of competition." The US huge also issued a separate opinion dismissing the case by the states saying that the attorneys general had waited for a long time to bring the case for the acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

FTC complaint 'says almost nothing concrete'

Reportedly, the judge has also said that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint “says almost nothing concrete on the key question of how much power Facebook actually had... it is almost as if the agency expects the court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist." Additionally, it stated that the federal agency based its case on “vague” assertion that Facebook controlled over 60% of the social networking market. However, the judge noted that FTC “does not even allege what it is meaning.”

Boasberg reportedly also wrote that “the market at issue here is unusual in a number of ways, including that the products therein are not sold for a price... the court is thus unable to understand exactly what the agency's '60 percent-plus' figure is even referring to, let alone able to infer the underlying facts that might substantiate it." Still, he ruled on Monday that “this defect could conceivably be overcome by re-pleading” allowing the federal agency to seek legal action again.

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