Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to reports in the morning of September 5, Beijing time, lawyers for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said a few days ago that the agency would continue to press ahead with a personal charge against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a lawsuit in FTC's internal court over Meta's acquisition of a virtual reality software maker.

Earlier, FTC took Meta and Zuckerberg to FTC's internal court, requiring Meta to first obtain approval from FTC for any future mergers and acquisitions. The lawsuit of this internal court is scheduled to be formally heard on January 19 next year.

In July, FTC formally sued Meta and Zuckerberg for buying virtual reality software maker With Unlimited without FTC's permission. The acquired company is the developer of Supernatural, a popular virtual reality fitness software on the market.

FTC's lawsuit takes a two-pronged approach. The agency also filed a complaint with the internal court of FTC and a federal district court in California. In December, a federal district court in California will hold a six-day court hearing to decide whether to support Meta to press ahead with the deal. At the same time, FTC is also pushing ahead with internal court proceedings.

At a hearing in the internal court on Friday, FTC lawyer Abby Dennis said FTC had decided not to sue Zuckerberg himself in federal district court proceedings, but would continue to press ahead with personal charges against Zuckerberg in internal court proceedings because FTC needed to seek a broader legal compensation package.

The lawsuit in the internal court may prevent Meta from acquiring Winthin, and if Meta makes any future acquisition and merger, it will first need to notify FTC and obtain the agency's prior approval.

Under existing U.S. acquisition laws, the Meta needs to notify the Federal Trade Commission and another antitrust "sister agency", the U.S. Department of Justice, only if the acquisition reaches or exceeds $101 million (about 698 million yuan).

In response to FTC's claim, a spokesman for Meta said that FTC made baseless allegations based entirely on subjective ideas and was out of touch with business reality. Meta will continue to defend its legitimate rights and interests, and the company believes that all kinds of evidence will prove that Meta's acquisition of Within is good for people, developers, and the virtual reality market as a whole.

Earlier, a large number of mergers and acquisitions by Facebook, the predecessor of Meta, attracted the attention of the US government. In 2020, the House of Representatives conducted a survey and found that in the decade of the 2010s, Facebook acquired about 100 companies, of which only one M & A deal was submitted to FTC for further review.

As an antitrust regulator, FTC also investigated mergers and acquisitions by technology giants and found that Meta and four other major technology companies had made more than 800 acquisitions and investment deals that did not need to be reviewed by regulators.

Meta's lawyer, Mark Hansen, said that in a future FTC internal court lawsuit, Meta hopes to drop the personal charges against Zuckerberg, and that Meta refused to reach a settlement with FTC in this lawsuit.

"We believe that this merger and acquisition of Winthin should be approved and should go ahead," Hansen said.

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