Federal Judge Denies Meta’s Document Request in FTC Case

The FTC doesn’t have to produce documents Meta requested about the agency’s review of the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, Judge James Boasberg ruled Tuesday in 1:20-cv-03590 before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, denying Meta’s motion to compel the documents (see 2208010050). Meta argued the FTC’s recommendation packages from its Competition and Economics bureaus contain “relevant factual information about the contemporaneous state of market competition that is unavailable anywhere else.” The FTC argued the materials are privileged, most notably due to deliberative-process privilege. Meta said the privilege doesn’t apply, and if it did, the agency waived that privilege when it shared the materials with the House Judiciary Committee in 2019. Boasberg ruled the release of the documents would harm “deliberative processes of the government by chilling the candid and frank communications necessary for effective governmental decision-making.”