The Federal Trade Commission hopes to grill meta boss Mark Zuckerberg next month in an anti-trust trial seeking to settle the Instagram acquisition.
Zuckerberg is one of the key meta-executives called to testify at trial. List of witnesses submitted by FTC lawyers Court filings on Wednesday. The trial is scheduled to begin in April.
The federal government said Zuckerberg is expected to be questioned for seven hours. For example, the testimony of Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom is tabbed for an estimated three hours.
Besides Zuckerberg and Systrom, notable executives on the FTC's witness list include former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, current Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and current Meta CEO Javier Olivan.
“We believe the evidence at the trial shows that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp is suitable for competition and consumers,” a Meta spokesman said in a statement.
The FTC claims that the company, previously known as Facebook, maintains an illegal monopoly over the social media market. Specifically, the federal government said it overpaid to acquire WhatsApp for $1 billion in 2012 and $19 billion in 2014.
The Fed wants to force a breakup of meta by forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp as independent companies.
The agency initially filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2020 during the first term of President Trump's office. Last November, US District Judge James Boasberg cut some of the FTC's claims, but said that the central debate about Instagram and WhatsApp could go to court.
At the same time, the judge suggested that the FTC faced a difficult fight to prove its claim.
“The committee faces tough questions about whether the claims can maintain the melting pot of trial,” the judge said. “Indeed, that position sometimes carries the country's creaking antitrust precedent to their limits.”
The FTC, led by Trump-appointed chairman Andrew Ferguson, shows that it will continue to maintain a hard-line stance towards the tech industry.
This week, the FTC confirmed it would pursue a lawsuit against Amazon over alleged deceptive practices, including its prime subscription service, hours after seeking delays in lawsuits due to lack of resources.
“From day one, we have made it clear that we will commit the resources needed for this case. The Trump Vance FTC will never step back from acquiring big technology,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Separately, the FTC is moving forward with a major antitrust probe targeting Microsoft, which began during former President Joe Biden's term.
With post wire
