Meta fined for two unreported acquisitions in Israel

Meta has been fined by the Israel Competition Authority for not reporting two acquisitions made by Facebook in Israel in 2018 and 2019.

In September 2019 Facebook acquired Servicefriend. The year previously Facebook acquired Redkix from the brothers Oude and Roy Antebe, who had developed a platform for sending massive numbers of announcements, for tens of millions of shekels. The Redkix acquisition was reported to the media by Facebook itself but the Competition Authority was not told of the matter.

The Israel Competition Authority said, “A company that holds a monopolistic market share must inform the Competition regulator about signing an agreement to acquire a company, wait for the regulator’s decision, and only after agree to make the acquisition,”

After negotiations with Meta, the Competition Authority reached a joint decision with Meta that Meta will pay NIS 25 million to the state coffers and undertake to report any merger of companies it carries out in the future, as long as it continues to be defined as a monopoly in the field of social networks for private users. According to the regulator, if such a request had been submitted in time for the two acquisitions, the Israel Competition Authority would have accepted the request without conditions.

A Meta spokesperson said, “We welcome the settlement as all parties can turn the page. We have always complied with our reporting obligations under Israeli law, and will continue to do so.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 10, 2024.

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