Meta’s Giphy Deal Set To Be Blocked By UK Antitrust Regulator

Meta’s Giphy Deal Set To Be Blocked By UK Antitrust Regulator
Andrew McKean
By Andrew McKean



The UK competition regulator is expected to block Meta (the new Facebook) platforms acquisition of online GIF platform Giphy in the coming days, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is anticipated to reverse Meta’s AUD $560 million move after an extensive investigation into competition concerns. Should this impending ruling actuate, it would be the first time the CMA has unwound a completed big tech acquisition.

Meta – formerly Facebook, announced in May 2020 that it was obtaining Giphy. The website for making and sharing images, or GIF’s, was intended to be integrated with Meta’s photo-sharing app, Instagram.

However, in June that same year, the CMA began an investigation into this deal. A provisional finding said that the new relationship would harm competitors in the social media market.

Subsequently, the CMA believed that Meta should be forced to sell the GIF platform as it would give them an unfair advantage over rival social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok which also use Giphy. Though, a final decision doesn’t need to be made before the 1st of December.

Speaking about the scrutiny, associate professor of economics at the Oxford Institute, Greg Taylor said, “Outside of the tech world, mergers get investigated all the time and it’s not that unusual for them to be blocked to have some sort of remedy imposed upon them.”

“The first time that we see such a merger blocked, it’s really, I think, drawing a line in the sand,” he added.

As reported on by Yahoo News, even though Meta and Giphy are both listed as US companies, the CMA has jurisdiction over any acquisition where the combined party’s control over 25 per cent of a particular good or service supplied in the UK.

Together Meta and Giphy would control an 80 to 90 per cent market share of searchable animated sticker libraries as per CMA conclusions.

In the past Meta has already been fined AUD $93million for breaching an order that was imposed during an investigation into its purchase of the GIF platform, Giphy.

Increasingly so, it appears that interventionist policy is superseding the laissez-faire attitudes that have long been held toward technology competition.

 




Please login with linkedin to comment

Facebook Meta

Latest News

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm
  • Media

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm

Sydney Comedy Festival 2024 is live and ready to rumble, showing the best of international and homegrown talent at a host of venues around town. As usual, it’s hot on the heels of its big sister, the giant that is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, picking up some acts as they continue on their own […]

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth
  • Advertising

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has announced the final epic lineup of local and global marketing powerhouses for RESET for Growth 2024. Lead image: Josh Faulks, chief executive officer, AANA  Back in 2000, a woman with no business experience opened her first juice bar in Adelaide. The idea was brilliantly simple: make healthy […]