WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Dozens of states led by New York requested a U.S. federal appeals court on Friday to reinstate an antitrust lawsuit filed in opposition to Facebook.
“Facebook is a monopolist that has exploited its immense market energy to crush competitors. Through an ongoing course of conduct to ‘purchase or bury’ nascent rivals, Facebook has maintained a monopoly that harms its customers and the general public at massive,” wrote legal professionals for New York and different states in a submitting to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Facebook proprietor Meta Platforms Inc mentioned the states had been incorrect to ask for the district court dismissal to be reversed. “There aren’t any grounds for overturning that call within the court of appeals,” a Meta spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
New York Attorney General Letitia James mentioned Facebook was unhealthy for shoppers. “Time and once more, the social media big has used its market dominance to power small firms out of enterprise and cut back competitors for thousands and thousands of customers,” she mentioned.
The group, made up of 46 states, Guam and the District of Columbia, argued that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia erred in ruling they’d waited too lengthy to file the lawsuit.
They argued that states are allowed delays that personal plaintiffs should not. They additionally argued that if the court decided they did wait too lengthy, states are allowed deference that others should not due to their function in defending the general public curiosity.
Boasberg had additionally thrown out a associated Federal Trade Commission criticism in opposition to Facebook in June however allowed the company to refile the case. It did so, and Boasberg mentioned this week the case can be allowed to go ahead.
Both the FTC and the states had requested the court in 2020 to order Facebook to promote Instagram, which it purchased for $1 billion in 2012, and WhatsApp, which it purchased for $19 billion in 2014.
The lawsuits adopted years of investigation of the 4 greatest U.S. tech giants, in addition to lawsuits in opposition to Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz ind Washington and Elizabeth Culliford in New YorkEnhancing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
