FTC will examine prior acquisitions by Big Tech companies

Joseph Simons, nominee to serve on the Federal Trade Commission, testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing in Hart Building on February 14, 2018.

Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday it will examine prior acquisitions by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. The commission voted 5-0 to issue special orders to review the past mergers.

The FTC will require the companies to provide information on acquisitions not previously reported to the antitrust agencies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, according to a press release. Companies are required to submit merger and acquisition proposals that exceed a certain size for review by the FTC and Department of Justice, usually when a deal is valued at more than $90 million, according to the FTC website.

“The orders will help the FTC deepen its understanding of large technology firms’ acquisition activity, including how these firms report their transactions to the federal antitrust agencies, and whether large tech companies are making potentially anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent or potential competitors that fall below HSR filing thresholds and therefore do not need to be reported to the antitrust agencies,” according to the release.

The special orders suggest that the FTC is honing in on the question of how Big Tech companies use acquisitions to amass power and how the data from acquired companies are used. The FTC has confirmed it is investigating Facebook for potentially anticompetitive practices after the company disclosed the probe. Several outlets have reported it is also probing Amazon, while the Justice Department has oversight of Apple and Alphabet-owned Google. Microsoft is not thought to be the subject of any current antitrust investigation but as the focal point of a landmark antitrust case in the 1990s.

In addition to providing information that would typically be required for HSR disclosures, the FTC is ordering the companies to disclose “information and documents on their corporate acquisition strategies, voting and board appointment agreements, agreements to hire key personnel from other companies, and post-employment covenants not to compete.”

The orders also ask companies to share information  about “how acquired assets were integrated and how acquired data has been treated.”

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

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