Back in February when Facebook announced that they intended to purchase the mobile messaging service, WhatsApp, for $19 Billion, it made big news. Once they got approval from the FTC here in the US, most people expected it would be a done deal. Facebook has surprised many people, however, in that they requested that the European Union perform an antitrust review of the deal. This is unusual because most of the time companies don’t want to be reviewed to see if they are violating any antitrust laws.
It looks like Facebook is asking for this review so they can avoid multiple antitrust reviews or other potential legal problems in each of the individual countries within the EU. The Facebook legal team likely expects that they will receive a more unbiased review from the EU courts than they would from individual countries, where they have already been facing some legal challenges.
Specifically, Facebook is likely worried about the UK, Spain and Cyprus being pressured to block the deal. Major telecom companies within those countries have already made comments about how the acquisition of WhatsApp could cause Facebook to have a dominant control over messaging and other communication services in their countries.
If Facebook gets the approval from the EU courts, however, they won’t have to go through individual approval in the other EU member countries. Thomas Graf, who is an antitrust lawyer in Brussels, said “Facebook might prefer to go to the commission than go before several national regulators, which would each ask it for information.”
Of course, there is always a risk that the EU commission won’t be as easy to get through as they expect, but this is clearly a risk Facebook is willing to take. Since filing, the other EU member countries have 15 days to object and request to review the case themselves. It is unlikely that this will happen, which will then require the EU commission to take the case as Facebook requested.
Most people who are following this acquisition case feel that there won’t be any major problem with getting approval, and at this point it is primarily just going through the motions. As with any legal case, however, it is impossible to predict the outcome of these types of things.
