States Defend Bringing Delayed Antitrust Action Against Facebook

State enforcers lacked sufficient information to block Facebook’s buys of Instagram and WhatsApp, partly because the platform misrepresented its intentions, 48 state attorneys general argued Thursday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in docket 21-7078 (see 2203150046). The basis of the antitrust claims only became clear after Facebook’s conduct was “well underway” and the cumulative effects of its behavior became apparent, the states argued. Facebook doesn’t refute that law enforcers “should judiciously evaluate competitive concerns” before filing and enforcers shouldn’t be “stripped of their critical law-enforcement authority merely because they took the time to do so,” the states wrote.