Meta faces April trial in FTC case seeking to unwind Instagram merger

Facebook owner Meta Platforms will face trial in April over the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s allegations that the social media platform bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush emerging competition, a judge in Washington said on Monday.

The FTC sued in 2020, during the Trump administration, alleging the company acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on personal social networks. Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate nascent threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC claims.