$1bn for Instagram? Knock yourself out, Facebook - UK watchdog The UK's merger and acquisitions regulator has cleared Facebook to snaffle up photo filter Instagram. Imagine the sighs of relief at the social network when the watchdog ruled that the $1bn acquisition won't affect competition. The Office of Fair Trading said there was no need to refer the proposed deal to the Competition …
Because of all that money we give Facebook. I mean, I must have spent a fortun... actually. No. I haven't. And I have ad-blockers. And I don't click ads. And I upload a ton of crap onto there for family to see, including hefty-sized videos of my kid walking in circles. And I played a game or two until they started asking for "points" or money.
And... hell, I don't know why. Apparently because "someone said so". Let's see how this pans out. At one point FriendsReunited was "worth" hundreds of millions of pounds. Be good to know where all that came from because it depreciated like mad once Facebook took off and never seemed to do anything to make its money back for anyone.
Given that there are a handful of Facebook Ltd's in Companies House and one of them is registered to a HUGE accountants in Egham, who seem to serve all sorts of international clients tax needs, I'd guess that the UK has not only jurisdiction but the ability to - for example - stop all UK advertising payments getting to the company. Probably even EU, depending on where their other offices are and how far it goes up the legal chain.
And outside of that, it would still be of interest to the EU (of which the UK is a member) for a huge corporation doing business in Europe with their own money-handling facilities (you can now "buy" things on Facebook, don't forget) whether they are on-shore or not - especially when it comes to potentially anti-competitive actions that would impact on UK/EU competitors.
It's like saying "What right does the EU have to fine Microsoft and order it to do things?" As it turns out, all the right in the world (or at least the EU).
They trade here. They accept money from here. They provide service to here. They advertise here. They pay tax here. They affect competition here. That's what jurisdiction they have.
Having all your EU income suspended, your finances audited, your tax affairs inspected, your company fined or suspended, banking outfits forced to freeze your accounts or stop processing your transactions etc. because you failed to properly consult on an anti-competitive takeover would actually hurt quite a bit. Probably more than the equivalent in the US because some people forget we actually do a lot more business collectively as the EU than the US alone does.
Somebody must have referred it to them though the Office of Fair Trading is not the right department: it should be the Monopolies & Merger Commission. But as it's non-domestic the EU's Trade Commissioner is responsible. Note that jurisdictions are rather flexible as the recent fine of S&C by the New York bank regulator shows: Federal restriction so Federal regulator responsible (there basically isn't one and as S&C isn't listed in America the SEC can't investigate. But, if you're market is big enough, you make the rules as AOL, Honeywell-Bull, Microsoft and Oracle have demonstrated. Can't wait until the Chinese really catch on to the idea, ProView was just the beginning.
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