Court Converts Friday’s FTC-Meta Hearing to Virtual-Only

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Francisco granted the FTC and Meta's Oct. 13 joint administrative motion to hold their hearing Friday via Zoom. Lawyers for both sides who will participate in the hearing asked that it be converted to virtual-only because they all are located on the East Coast. The hearing is on the FTC’s Sept. 9 motion to strike some of Meta’s affirmative defenses (docket 5:22-cv-04325) on grounds that they fail to meet “minimum pleading standards, or are subject to heightened pleading standards, which they also necessarily fail to meet.” The FTC is suing to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy on antitrust grounds.