The FTC is investigating past acquisitions by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook because “it is important to keep tech markets open and competitive,' the chairman said.
The Federal Trade Commission announced it plans to examine past acquisitions from Microsoft MSFT, -2.26%, Google parent company Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +0.09% GOOG, +0.01%, Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.60%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.79%, and Facebook Inc. FB, -2.
“The orders will help the FTC deepen its understanding of large technology firms’ acquisition activity, including how these firms report their transactions to the federal antitrust agencies, and whether large tech companies are making potentially anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent or potential competitors that fall below HSR filing thresholds and therefore do not need to be reported to the antitrust agencies,” the agency said in its announcement of the investigation.
However, Big Tech makes myriad smaller deals every year that are never announced and do not go through regulatory channels. For instance, Google closed on a $2.4 billion acquisition of software company Looker in 2019 and agreed to purchase Fitbit for $2.1 billion — a deal that is still under review — but also spent $1 billion to acquire other companies that the company does not name in its annual filing.
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