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Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook Inc., has been granted approval for its acquisition of Within Unlimited virtual reality company. The court will allow the deal to proceed despite the objection from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The decision of Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California was revealed on Tuesday, Jan. 31. His ruling has been described as a blow to FTC’s efforts in blocking Meta’s acquisition of Within, the developer of the popular fitness app called Supernatural.
Apparently, the court rejected FTC’s request to stop the deal between Meta and Within so the companies are expected to go ahead and complete the negotiations. Then again, a source who has knowledge of the matter said that the judge did grant one thing to the trade agency, and that is to stop the deal from closing until Feb. 7, and this delay gives FTC some time to determine its next move, as per CNBC.
This comes after it filed an emergency motion on Tuesday to stop Meta from completing the deal for another week. Once the given time is over, Meta is now allowed to buy Within. It was noted that the judge’s decision is actually still sealed as of Wednesday, Feb. 1, thus only anonymous sources are providing the details.
The FTC may still appeal the decision and decide to go through the in-house administrative proceeding for the merger. And when asked for comments on the court’s ruling, FTC was not able to respond to the requests. The agency’s spokesman, Peter Kaplan, also said, “Out of respect for the Court’s orders, the FTC is not in a position to comment at this time.”
The Washington Post reported that the ruling on Meta’s acquisition of Within has been widely viewed as a test of the current FTC chairman Lina Khan’s control over Silicon Valley’s market power. People are observing if she can bring long-shot cases against digital mergers involving tech giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.
Photo by: Dima Solomin/ Unsplash
