Meta’s Giphy acquisition will likely stay blocked after UK appeals court ruling

In a judgment on Tuesday, an appeals tribunal in the United Kingdom largely upheld a previous ruling ordering Meta (parent company to Facebook) to unwind its acquisition of Giphy, as first reported by the Financial Times. The judgment comes more than six months after the initial ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and more than two years after Meta first announced its intention to acquire the company.

The ruling was not a total defeat for Meta, however. While the appeals tribunal found in favor of the CMA in five of the six claims, the tribunal did rule that the CMA had failed to properly inform Meta of Snapchat’s acquisition of Gfycat for nearly a year after it became aware of the ruling, thus undermining the…

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