Judgment of the Tribunal on an application by Facebook, Inc. and Facebook UK Limited (together, “the Applicants”) for a review under s.120 of the Enterprise Act 2002 of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (“CMA”) refusal to grant certain requested derogations (“the Carve‑Out Requests”) from an initial enforcement order made by the CMA on 9 June 2020 in connection with a completed merger between Facebook, Inc. and GIPHY, Inc.
The Applicants sought an order quashing the CMA’s decision on three grounds:
Ground 1: the CMA’s refusal is irrational and disregards the statutory purpose;
Ground 2: the CMA’s refusal is disproportionate; and
Ground 3: the CMA’s decision infringes the requirement of legal certainty.
For the reasons given in the Judgment, the Tribunal unanimously decided that the reviewable decision in this case is the CMA’s decision that it would not determine the Carve‑Out Requests without further information or sufficient further information and dismissed Grounds 1 to 3.
