FTC Chair Lina Khan testifies during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce titled “Overview of the Securities and Exchange Commission” at the Rayburn Building on Tuesday, April 18, 2023.
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WASHINGTON – Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan declined to withdraw from the agency’s lawsuit against Meta Platforms on the advice of top agency officials, according to internal FTC documents published by Bloomberg News.
An ethics official recommended that Khan remove himself from a 2022 review of parent company Facebook’s proposed merger with virtual reality fitness service Inside Limited to “avoid appearing biased”.
“From a federal ethics perspective, I highly doubt Chairman Khan participated as an arbitrator in this proceeding – recently, prior to joining the Commission – she has repeatedly called on the FTC to prevent any future acquisition of Facebook,” Lorielle Pankey, a designated ethics official, wrote in the August 2022 memo.
The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Pankey added that Khan’s decision to hear the case “was not a violation of federal ethics.” The FTC defended Khan’s involvement in the case, and a majority of the agency’s Democrats approved her decision in the face of objections from former Republican commissioner Christine Wilson, Bloomberg reported.
Wilson resigned earlier this year.
Khan’s objection to the Meta . acquisition prompted the company’s request to remove her from the case. FTC Block Meta .’s petition in February, although a federal judge allowed the acquisition to proceed.
The FTC sued the tech company to prevent the merger of Inside Limited in July 2022. FTC Deputy Director of Competition John Newman accused Meta of “trying to take the lead” through an “illegal acquisition”.
In her Dissent from the decision to refuse, Wilson, who slam Khan in a resignation letter, arguing that the head of the FTC in 2017 made “a clear statement that Meta transactions are illegal.”
