The social media giant reached $1 trillion in market capitalization thanks to a favourable ruling from a federal court
Cases attempted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and by
48 state attorneys general were dismissed on Monday. Facebook was sued in
December 2020 on the grounds of engaging in a systematic strategy to eliminate
threats to its monopoly, including the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to the federal court, the FTC failed to prove that Facebook holds
monopoly power in the US personal social networking market.
“The Complaint is undoubtedly light on specific factual
allegations regarding consumer-switching preferences,” the court wrote. “These
allegations — which do not even provide an estimated actual figure or range
for Facebook’s market share at any point over the past ten years —
ultimately fall short of plausibly establishing that Facebook holds
market power.”
Moreover, on the parallel case from the state attorneys
general, the long delay between the purchases of the two companies and the 2020
case filing was unprecedented at a state level.
After the news hit the wires, Facebook stock price traded
more than 4% higher at $355.64. It became the fifth US company to reach such a
milestone, following the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.
Source: cnn.com
