A US FTC official says the agency won't appeal its US federal court loss over Meta's Within acquisition but could still pursue the case with an internal judge
and it wasted my tax dollars. No respect for @FTC https://twitter.com/... Dan Amrich / @danamrich : This is excellent news in my household. As a choreographer & mapper for @getSupernatural, @katrinauch is long overdue for this good fortune and tangible reward for creating things of value. Adult beverages will be consumed in her honor. https://twitter.com/... Bryan Koenig / @bkoenig94 : NEW: @FTC officials say agency won't appeal district court loss against @Meta/@WITHIN. BUT agency hasn't yet ruled out proceeding thru an in-house challenge currently set to go to trial next week. If that proceeds, it'd be 1st time FTC didn't drop after fed loss in about 30 yrs Lee Hepner / @leehepner : This is smart. The FTC achieved their objective of advancing the potential competition legal theory, but lost on a narrow determination of fact. The 9th Cir would be deferential to Davila's determination of the facts. https://twitter.com/... Michael Acton / @macton93 : #Meta #Within - FTC will *not* appeal the federal judge's order in the case Michael Acton / @macton93 : Meta will close the deal in the coming days, once the TRO lapses tomorrow at midnight PT. Then the question is whether FTC keeps fighting in administrative court. Since the evidentiary bar is lower to win a preliminary injunction, that could be tough.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes one front in a two-front fight. After a US judge denied the FTC's preliminary injunction against Meta's purchase of VR fitness maker Within — rejecting the claim that the deal would lessen competition in AR/VR — the agency had a week to decide whether to take the case to appellate court or keep fighting on its second track.
It chose neither an appeal nor a retreat, at least not yet: officials say the FTC will skip the appellate route but hasn't ruled out pressing ahead with the in-house administrative trial set for next week. The whole challenge rests on a novel, untested legal argument the agency has been pursuing since December, which reporting at the time flagged as a potential catalyst for congressional antitrust reform if it failed.
First-order effects
- Meta is clear to close the Within acquisition once the temporary restraining order lapses, unless the FTC formally commits to the internal trial still on the calendar.
- Within's founders and staff get certainty either way — the deal proceeds, or the FTC re-commits to a forum where its own judges hear the case.
Second-order effects
- A loss in the internal forum would hand critics of the FTC's aggressive merger posture a clean sweep across both tracks, strengthening the case of lawmakers already weighing an antitrust statute rewrite in response to the novel theory.
- Rivals and acquirers in gaming and VR content gain a template: if the FTC cannot sustain either track against a niche-content acquisition, similar deals face materially lower regulatory risk.
Third-order effects
- If both tracks fail, the episode feeds a structural debate over whether dual-track merger enforcement — federal court plus in-house judge — survives when agencies stake cases on untested theories, pushing the burden back toward Congress rather than regulators.
The trend: US antitrust enforcement is testing how far agencies can stretch novel competition theories in court before the failure forces the fight back to Congress.