After the courts dismissed the anti-trust lawsuit filed against Facebook Inc. for allegedly forcing the founders of Instagram and WhatsApp to sell their companies to Facebook in 2012 and 2014 respectively, the stocks of the company rallied by 4.2% on day-to-day to an all-time high of $355.64 on June 28, 2021, helping it to reach the $1 trillion territories. The stocks of Facebook have raised by 30% since the beginning of this year, primarily due to strong earnings and increasing online ad market globally.
The anti-trust lawsuits filed by Federal Trade Commission urged the court to break down Facebook into three divisions i.e. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Another lawsuit under a similar claim was filed by 46 states challenging the purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp by Facebook. Both the lawsuits claimed that those purchases were done because Facebook feared facing stiff competition from them in near future.
Facebook had criticized those complaints on the grounds that FTC earlier had allowed those deals to happen and was unable to explain why giving permission to those acquisitions was a mistake. The case was put forward to the District Court of Columbia, Washington.
The district judge dismissed the lawsuit citing that the FTC failed to justify how Facebook had 60% market share or rather a monopoly in the social media market as claimed by them. Further, the court also dismissed the joint petition of 46 State attorneys demanding an answer on why there was a delay of so many years for filing the petition.
After the dismissal of the petitions, Facebook stocks increased in price and the company became the youngest company to reach $1 trillion in valuations. Interesting to note that Facebook has added as much as $595 billion in market valuation since the March 2020 lows. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook became the 5th US-based company to achieve this feat. Many Wall Street analysts predict that Facebook Inc. stock could cross the $500 bar at the end of this year.
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