Court Order: Meta’s Giphy Acquisition Remains Blocked

In the course of the takeover of the GIF platform Giphy, which was stopped by the British competition authority, Meta appealed – but was only able to achieve a small success in court.

An appeals committee is in the case of Meta’s stalled Giphy acquisition came to the conclusionthat this should remain blocked. In May 2020, the company acquired the GIF platform for a whopping $400 million and planned to embed the content more extensively on its own platforms. But the full takeover was prevented in 2021 by the British competition authority CMA (Competition and Markets Authority). The authority had examined the acquisition more closely and had come to the conclusion that this would promote an unfair monopoly position for the group.

Committee decides in favor of Metas in one out of six cases

While the committee ruled in favor of the CMA in five out of six cases, there is at least one small win for Meta: the court found that the UK competition authority failed to properly notify Meta of Snapchat’s acquisition of Giphy’s competitor Gyfcat after Snapchat initially expressed interest to purchase Giphy. This would have undermined the company’s defenses. meta speaker Christopher Sgro expressed himself as follows on the court’s decision:

Today’s ruling found that the CMA’s approach to its investigation was ‘difficult to defend’ and ‘undermines the entirety of the decision‘. We look forward to understanding how these serious process flaws will be addressed. We firmly believe our investment would enhance GIPHY’s product for the millions of people, businesses, and partners who use it.