The US Chamber of Commerce filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the D.C. Circuit on Thursday backing Meta against the FTC’s attempt to revive its monopoly case, arguing that a permanent injunction requires an ongoing or imminent violation, not a past one. Under the FTC’s theory, the group wrote, an acquisition might never be “truly final,” because a company could spend a decade integrating a deal, watch the market shift around it, and still face a breakup over conditions that have since disappeared. The FTC sued in December 2020 over Meta’s purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, seeking a spinoff. Judge James Boasberg dismissed the case after trial last year on a finding that Meta competes with TikTok and YouTube, and the FTC’s appeal argues it only had to prove monopoly power as of 2020.
