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Joseph Simons, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said Monday that Facebook's efforts to integrate Instagram and WhatsApp more closely could hinder any attempt to break the social media giant.
Mr. Simons said all options were at the table while the agency was investigating Facebook for possible antitrust violations, including major divestitures, but added that the plan Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, to bring together the top three brands of Facebook could complicate things.
"If they maintain separate structures and commercial infrastructure, it is much easier to disinvest in these circumstances than when they are completely entangled and all the eggs are scrambled," he said. he told the Financial Times.
Facebook revealed an antitrust investigation conducted by the FTC last month shortly after agreeing to pay $ 5 billion and adopt new supervisory practices under a regulation relating to the protection of the privacy concluded with the agency.
Mr. Simons announced his intention to complete the agency's investigation on Facebook prior to the 2020 elections. "In all the important cases that I'm trying to focus on, I'd like to be warned before the elections, "he said.
The survey was conducted by the FTC's Technology Working Group, announced in February as part of an effort to examine past transactions in the technology sector.
Mr. Simons declined to discuss details of what the FTC was investigating in the case of Facebook, but said the review of mergers by the agency was focused on whether the agreements were designed to eliminate potential competitors from the core.
He cited, as an example, the acquisition of Instagram, stating that the FTC would not question whether it would succeed as much as a photo service, but whether it would become anything something that could really challenge the Facebook platform. "
The FTC had previously authorized the acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram by Facebook. Mr. Simons acknowledged that it would be difficult for the agency to ask a court to cancel a merger that she had approved.
"Yeah, it's not easy," he said. "On the other hand, you might have a situation where you have additional evidence that the company was engaged in a program essentially aimed at smothering its competitors through an acquisition process."
The president of the FTC, a veteran antitrust attorney who had previously held the position of director of the agency's competition bureau, said there were two potential theories about success from a service like Instagram: either he did it because Facebook bought it, or he did it anyway.
"These are sort of the two competing scenarios and you have to see, do you have any evidence that allows you to choose one over the other and prove it," he said.
When asked what evidence he would look for in answering this question, Mr. Simons said, "Maybe we forgot something when we looked at the transaction and we had evidence we did not have. just did not get or saw t appreciate. "
He added: "And then, the other thing is maybe, historically, you can show that it was part, as I said earlier, of a systematic effort to eliminate your competition. "
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