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| Facebook fined $70 million in UK |
Facebook has been fined $70m (£50.5m) by UK regulators for violating an order during an investigation into the US social media giant's acquisition of Giphy.
In addition, the company was fined 500,000 pounds ($700,000) for changing compliance officers twice without permission.
The company launched its $400 million acquisition of Giphy in 2020, and even members of Congress thought it was a bad idea.
The agency launched an antitrust investigation into the deal in August. As part of the investigation, he issued an initial executive decree banning any further integration between Facebook and Giphy.
The original decree was intended to allow the company to continue to compete as if there had been no acquisition.
The competition and market regulator said Facebook deliberately failed to comply with its orders. Punishment is a warning that no company can be above the law.
She said it was the first time the UK competition authority had found out that a company had deliberately refused to disclose any requested information and had breached such an order.
The company is under increasing criticism from regulators and lawmakers for its business practices. Resists competition and market management.
Facebook pulled information about the Giphy acquisition
Autorité de la concurrence et des marchés said the company had not fully updated its compliance requirements to continue competing with Giphy and had not merged its activities with Giphy during the investigation.
She added that despite repeated warnings, the company still failed to provide the required information and believed that the violations were intentional.
Joel Bamford, Senior Director of Integration Affairs at the French Competition and Markets Authority, said: “We have warned the company that refusing to provide us with important information is against the order, but even after two different courts have failed to appeal it has moved forward by disregarding their legal obligations.
Bamford's words were reminiscent of what Samananda, an American labor law attorney, had to say. It did so after the company agreed to pay up to $14.25 million to settle a business compliance-related civil lawsuit.
In response to competition and market regulator fines. "We strongly refuse to penalize our unfair decision using the best compliance methodology adopted by the agency itself," the company said. We are reviewing the Autorité de la concurrence et du marché decision and reviewing our options.