Judge in US case against Facebook delays trial preparations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge in the U.S. government’s antitrust case against Facebook Inc said on Tuesday that the social media company’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit “raises a number of serious challenges” and halted the discovery process.

In a brief order, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he expected to rule on the motion to dismiss next month.

“Given that Facebook’s motion to dismiss raises a number of serious objections to the complaint,” the judge wrote in a brief order, it would be premature to exchange documents until he has had a chance to decide whether part or all of the complaint will be dismissed outright.

Facebook asked the court to dismiss both lawsuits, one brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the other by a large group of states, maintaining that they were brought “in a tense environment of continued criticism of Facebook on matters entirely unrelated to antitrust issues.”

Facebook said in a second filing that a recent Supreme Court ruling means the FTC’s lawsuit against it calling for the sale of WhatsApp and Instagram should be dismissed. The company argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling allows the FTC to use a specific section of the FTC Act only to request an end to such conduct.

Last year, the FTC and a large group of states filed separate lawsuits accusing Facebook of breaking antitrust laws to keep smaller competitors at bay by acquiring rivals, such as its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. for $19 billion.

All told, the federal government and states filed five lawsuits against Alphabet Inc’s Facebook and Google last year amid bipartisan outrage over the use and misuse of social media’s power in both the economy and the political sphere.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)