Meta Antitrust Suit Filed by NY AG Dismissed by Appeals Court

The attorneys general of New York and other states, who sued Meta Platforms Inc. over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, were ruled to have waited too long to file suit over the acquisitions, resulting in their antitrust lawsuit being dismissed, a federal appeals court ruled.

‍

"Facebook's two major acquisitions of companies were brought to the attention of the states. Both of the cases had been publicized," a panel of three judges of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit wrote in a decision published Thursday. "Our court agrees with the district court that the States have delayed bringing a suit for an unduly long period of time."

‍

Neither Meta nor the office of the New York attorney general immediately responded to inquiries for comment. 

‍

Approximately 48 state and territory attorneys general, led by the Attorney General in New York, filed a lawsuit against Meta in December 2020 accusing the company of monopolizing social networks through a scheme designed to "buy or bury" its competitors. At the same time, the Federal Trade Commission also filed a suit almost identical to the one filed by the FTC. 

‍

The complaints allege that Meta acquired both the photo-sharing app Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp in 2012 so that the companies would not grow into competitors and to prevent competitors from gaining access to the company's user data and to prevent competitors from gaining a competitive advantage.

‍

On June 2021, Judge James Boasberg, who is sitting as a judge in both cases, dismissed the states' lawsuit on the grounds that they had waited too long before filing the lawsuit. As a result, the states appealed to the federal court, arguing that the legal doctrine known as laches should not apply to their case either, and the court agreed with them.

‍

It has not yet been decided when a trial date will be held for the FTC's lawsuit against Meta.