I'd love any pointers to precedent for how this plays out from here.
1. The acquisition was >1 year ago. (And there's some question of whether FB followed the correct process.)
2. The antitrust concern is in one major market with a ton of political and regulatory power — but still one of many. (Are there international trade agreements that inherently make this ruling impactful outside of the UK?)
3. The acquired company was very unlikely to find a better outcome, and would have been fairly likely to require costly restructuring for lack of this one.
I don't take this super seriously — because giphy feels replicable and, well, it's gifs. But curious if anyone else sees impactful competitive/strategic concerns, or if the matter at hand is really just political precedent setting.
Mostly I feel bad for giphy people. Hope they're nicely contractually protected.
In any acquisition an assessment of the regulatory risks has to be part of the process for the vendor. They took a risk in selling to FB and that risk hasn’t paid off. No one is entitled to the ‘best’ price if it involves something which falls foul of competition law.
And on competition - will anyone else be interested in GIFs if the dominant social network owns the market leader?
> “Companies are not required to seek CMA approval before they complete an acquisition but, if they decide to go ahead with a merger, we can stop the companies from integrating further if we think consumers might be affected and an investigation is needed.”
> He added: “We warned Facebook that its refusal to provide us with important information was a breach of the order but, even after losing its appeal in two separate courts, Facebook continued to disregard its legal obligations. This should serve as a warning to any company that thinks it is above the law.”
1. The acquisition was >1 year ago. (And there's some question of whether FB followed the correct process.)
2. The antitrust concern is in one major market with a ton of political and regulatory power — but still one of many. (Are there international trade agreements that inherently make this ruling impactful outside of the UK?)
3. The acquired company was very unlikely to find a better outcome, and would have been fairly likely to require costly restructuring for lack of this one.
I don't take this super seriously — because giphy feels replicable and, well, it's gifs. But curious if anyone else sees impactful competitive/strategic concerns, or if the matter at hand is really just political precedent setting.
Mostly I feel bad for giphy people. Hope they're nicely contractually protected.