FTC/Meta Injunction Hearing ‘Most Significant’ Antitrust Effort to Date: NSR

The four-day hearing that opened Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose on the injunction the FTC seeks to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy is “the most significant effort to date by the current antitrust agencies to expand antitrust powers in the digital economy,” reported New Street Research. “This is litigation that both the progressive forces pushing for more aggressive antitrust enforcement and the forces seeking to stop such enforcement have been hoping for,” it said. The progressives wanted a case that would test “novel theories of antitrust harm,” by applying antitrust law to potential competition, and preventing established big tech companies from buying up potential competitors in nascent markets, it said. Those who advocate for reining in the FTC and DOJ “have wanted a case that would enable a court to shoot down the theories and send a clear signal to antitrust agencies that traditional antitrust jurisprudence is sufficient to prevent anticompetitive behavior in digital markets,” it said.