A report by Bloomberg cited people familiar with the ruling as saying that a US judge denied the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the proposed transaction. The judge also issued a temporary restraining order that will essentially block Meta from closing the transaction for a week. This gives time to the FTC to appeal the ruling.
What’s the case?
In July 2022, the FTC filed a complaint to block Meta from acquiring virtual reality studio Within, which makes the popular VR app Supernatural. FTC said that the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company bought Within to end competition in the fitness market. Meta already owns Beat Saber which is a lot similar to Supernatural.
Meta fought the decision in December denying allegations of unlawfully monopolising the VR industry. As a result, Meta delayed the acquisition by a month. It meant that the company would not close the deal until January 31. In August, the Facebook-parent company agreed to not to close the deal until 11:59 p.m. on December 31.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth had said that “if this deal doesn’t close in a timely manner, we’ll probably just walk away.”
Companies Meta has acquired for metaverse
Meta is continuing to acquire companies despite witnessing losses in billions of dollars in the metaverse project. Last month, it acquired Gary Sharp Innovations, a Colorado-based optics startup that will help the company build better VR headsets as well as AR glasses. Meta entered a share purchase agreement with Gary Sharp Innovations in June.
In December, the Facebook-parent acquired Luxexcel, a company that makes 3D-printing prescription lenses for smart glasses. In June it bought BigBox VR, the maker of Population: One and April saw the purchase of Downpour Interactive, the studio behind the VR game Onward.
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