Meta Platforms on Wednesday asked a California federal judge to force Snap Inc to turn over internal corporate documents that the Facebook parent company said it needs to defend against US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust claims.
In a filing in Los Angeles federal court, Meta’s lawyers called Snap “centrally important” to the FTC’s case as a rival of Meta’s Facebook platform and said the company has “refused to provide the vast majority” of information sought through subpoenas in February.
Meta said it was seeking records that include information about how Snap viewed Meta’s acquisitions of photo-sharing site Instagram in 2012 and the messaging platform WhatsApp in 2014. The FTC’s lawsuit in Washington, D.C., federal court accused Meta of abusing its market power and seeks to unwind those deals. Meta has denied any market abuses.
Federal judges routinely are called on to referee disputes where one company demands business information from another, and the California court can be expected to address whether, as Snap claimed in Wednesday’s jointly submitted filing, Meta’s demand is too broad and overly burdensome.
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