US FTC meeting to review Big Tech’s small deals

WASHINGTON, September 8 (Reuters) – The United States Federal Trade Commission will hold its next public meeting on September 15 to hear staff findings on deals made by big tech companies like Facebook (FB.O) and Apple ( AAPL.O) which are sometimes too small to trigger an antitrust review, the agency said on Wednesday.

The agency began holding public meetings after President Lina Khan was sworn in in June. Next week, the five commissioners will also consider whether to abandon guidelines put in place under the Trump administration regarding deals that link a company to one of its suppliers.

The staff report will include Big Tech’s acquisitions from 2010 to 2019, some of which have not been reported to antitrust authorities due to their small size.

Big Tech companies, which also include Alphabet (GOOGL.O) Google and Amazon.com (AMZN.O), have been under antitrust surveillance for more than two years. The FTC sued Facebook while the Justice Department sued Google. Others remain under investigation. Read more

The agency sent information requests to five big tech companies, including Microsoft (MSFT.O), in February 2020, saying it wanted to check whether any of the smaller deals hurt competition.

The three Democrats and two Republicans on the committee will also vote on whether to release a policy statement on privacy breaches by health apps and a process for accepting comments on potential rules.

Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio

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