The Competition and Markets Authority, CMA started probing into Facebook’s $400M takeover as Facebook, according to CMA purposely held up the investigation by giving the reason for maintaining an earlier IEO. Director of mergers at CMA, Joel Bamford, pointed out that a company should take heed of this, as no company and no one is above law.
Refusing to provide information Facebook has been accused of neglecting its legal obligations.CMA states that this is one of the first encounters it has faced when a company deliberately and in sense refused to provide information. Thus Facebook has been fined for this deliberate and significant breach.
With major concerns about Facebook’s takeover of the biggest provider of animated gifs Giphy CMA launched its investigation. Facebook cut the provision of gifs to competitors, the demand for more data from users for utilizing the services and also the removal of a competitor from the advertising market, were some of the ambiguities identified by CMA. The Giphy and Facebook deal is also currently being investigated in Australia and Austria. Facebook has also been accused of noncooperation with CMA AMD IEO. Facebook’s spokesperson has strongly opposed the fine levied by CMA.
