During an internal court hearing on Friday, FTC attorney Abby Dennis said the agency agreed to remove Zuckerberg from the federal case, but not in an internal lawsuit because it wanted to get Broader legal remedies. The internal lawsuit would block Meta’s acquisition of the Within Unlimited deal and would require Meta and Zuckerberg to give advance notice of future mergers or acquisitions and seek FTC approval.
Under U.S. merger law, Meta is required to notify the FTC and its sister agency, the Justice Department, only if the value of the deal reaches or exceeds $101 million. But a 2020 U.S. House investigation into Facebook found that the company has acquired nearly 100 companies over the past 10 years, only one of which has come under deep FTC scrutiny. The FTC’s own study of acquisitions by Facebook and four other large tech platforms found that they had acquired or invested in more than 800 smaller companies that did not require merger notices or scrutiny.