WASHINGTON—Federal Trade Commission Chair (FTC) Lina Khan, who promised tougher antitrust enforcement, said she would not rule out a settlement with Meta’s Facebook, which the agency sued in 2020, but indicated there was a high bar for any agreement.
In an interview on Tuesday, she also criticized what she said was a large number obviously illegal deals and added she was not a fan of agreements to remedy problematic mergers with asset sales. Nor does she like behavioral remedies, when companies pledge a particular policy change for a certain number of years.
Under former President Donald Trump, the FTC sued Facebook in December 2020 alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain its social network monopoly. Asked about the likelihood of a settlement, Khan said: “We’ve laid out the relief that we think would be necessary. I think you can yourself calculate the likelihood of Facebook willingly settling for some of that relief.”…