FTC's Lina Khan refused to sit out agency's case against Meta despite ethics concerns, report says

WASHINGTON — Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan refused to recuse herself from the agency's lawsuit against Meta Platforms against the advisement of apical bureau officials, according to internal FTC documents published by Bloomberg News.

An morals authoritative recommended Khan region herself from a 2022 reappraisal of Facebook genitor institution Meta's projected merger with virtual world fittingness work Within Limited to "avoid an quality of partiality."

"From a national morals perspective, I person beardown reservations with Chair Khan participating arsenic an adjudicator successful this proceeding wherever — reasonably recently, earlier joining the Commission — she repeatedly called for the FTC to artifact any future acquisition by Facebook," Lorielle Pankey, a designated morals official, wrote successful the August 2022 memo.

The FTC did not instantly respond to a petition for remark from CNBC.

Pankey added that Khan's determination to adjudicate the lawsuit "is not per se a national morals violation." The FTC defended Khan's engagement successful the case, and the agency's Democratic bulk approved her determination implicit the objections of erstwhile Republican commissioner Christine Wilson, Bloomberg reported.

Wilson stepped down earlier this year.

Khan's perceived absorption to Meta acquisitions spurred the company's petition to disqualify her information successful the case. The FTC blocked Meta's petition successful February, though a national justice allowed the acquisition to proceed.

The FTC sued the tech firm to artifact the Within Limited merger successful July 2022. FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director John Newman accused Meta of "trying to bargain its mode to the top" done an "illegal acquisition."

In her dissent from the recusal decision, Wilson, who slammed Khan successful a resignation letter, argued that the FTC main successful 2017 made "an explicit connection that Meta transactions are illegal."

Read the afloat Bloomberg study here.