The Federal Trade Commission decided to drop its antitrust lawsuit against Meta Platform’s acquisition of virtual reality firm Within Unlimited, thereby putting an end to the agency’s investigation.
Last year, the FTC filed two lawsuits in federal court and its own court in an effort to halt the purchase. During a trial in December in a federal court in San Jose, US District Judge Edward Davila ruled in favour of Meta, concluding that the FTC had not shown sufficient evidence to establish that the purchase would impair competition in the emerging virtual reality sector.
The administrative action was put on hold as the FTC thought about its options this month after deciding not to appeal Davila’s ruling. Notwithstanding the fact that the judge’s decision permitted Meta to complete the purchase on February 10, the FTC might have pursued its claim in administrative court and attempted to annul the sale. But, the FTC decided to drop the lawsuit and terminate the matter on Friday.
We’re excited that the Within team has joined Meta, and we’re eager to partner with this talented group in bringing the future of VR fitness to life,
Meta
Users of the popular game Supernatural by Inside may enrol in virtual reality fitness lessons. The latest in a series of acquisitions that have elevated Meta to a dominating force in the virtual reality market, Meta announced in 2021 that it was buying Inside.
The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, placed a significant wager on immersive virtual worlds, sometimes known as metaverses. This strategy pivot caused Facebook to change its name to Meta in 2021.
The Meta-Within agreement was challenged by the FTC in court in July on the grounds that it would reduce competition in the market for virtual reality fitness goods. That was Ms. Khan’s first antitrust case against one of the “big four” technology firms: Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon.
In comparison to her predecessors, Khan has adopted a more aggressive stance on mergers and increased the agency’s attention to technological behemoths due to their potential to swiftly dominate emerging markets. The FTC objected to Microsoft’s plan to acquire Activision Blizzard on the same grounds that doing so would give the company an advantage in the rapidly growing cloud gaming business.
The FTC asserts that even though it lost the case, it wasn’t all negative since Davila’s ruling acknowledged the agency’s notion that mergers that don’t immediately harm competition but may in the future be prohibited.
Source: Bloomberg
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