United States of America: District Court of Columbia authorizes FTC lawsuit on Facebook for creation of a monopoly position

The District Court of Columbia has denied Facebook's motion to dismiss the renewed Complaint submitted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to sue Facebook for the maintenance of a monopoly through anticompetitive behaviour. According to the Court, with the amended complaint the FTC has "cleared the pleading bar and may proceed to discovery". The judge decided that the FTC has gathered enough facts to "plausibly establish" that Facebook exercises monopoly power in the personal social networking market, that its market share was protected by entry barriers and that the monopoly power was unlawfully maintained through the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. However, the Court did not allow allegations related to Facebook's interoperability policies because the company abandoned them in 2018. Finally, the Court also dismissed Facebook's argument for recusal of Lina Khan's vote to file the amended complaint. According to Facebook, Khan's past writings prejudged her liability, but the Court dismissed such accusation because Khan "was acting in a prosecutorial capacity".