Meta calls UK tech watchdog's Giphy decision 'irrational', 'inconsistent'

Meta Platform’s accused the UK’s antitrust watchdog of being “inconsistent” and “irrational” when it found that GIF search engine Giphy was a competitor in the display advertising sector.

 

Lawyers for Meta argued at the start of a London trial that despite the Competition and Markets Authority reviewing over 280,000 documents from the merging parties, not one showed them to compete in the ad market globally or in the UK. The tech giant is attempting to overturn the CMA’s order to unwind the $315-million deal. Nobody apart from Meta was prepared to pay an acceptable price for Giphy, the lawyers said in court documents prepared for the four-day trial. There had been no other serious offers made for Giphy during “extensive outreach” to potential purchasers by JP Morgan in November 2019.

 

Snap was contemplating a bid for Giphy and made an informal, verbal offer for the company valued at $142 million, Daniel Jowell, Meta’s lawyer, said during the hearing on Monday. Snap has subsequently bought rival-GIF search engine Gfycat, he said.