The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) antitrust lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta will go to trial on April 14th.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has scheduled a bench trial, meaning the case will not go to a jury and a judge will decide the outcome of the case.
The case has been poised to move forward since Boasberg denied Mehta's request for summary judgment earlier this month.
The FTC sued Meta in 2020, accusing the social media giant of maintaining an illegal monopoly over personal social networking through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The case was originally dismissed in 2021, but a judge allowed the FTC to file an amended complaint. In April, Meta asked Boasberg to rule in its favor, saying the company failed to prove that the acquisition harmed consumers.
But Boasberg ruled in mid-November that the case “must go to trial.”
“Ultimately, while the parties' legal joust has been impressive and comprehensive, there remains no clear winner,” he wrote. “Under the permissive summary judgment standard, the FTC presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable fact-finder to rule in its favor.”
The meth lawsuit was first launched under then-President Trump and will go to trial just months after Trump took office again. The suit was one of several filed against big tech companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple, under both the Trump and Biden administrations.
As President Trump fills his Cabinet, there are key roles that could influence the administration's approach to antitrust law, particularly who he chooses to chair the FTC and head the Justice Department's antitrust division. I don't know yet.
