Meta to pay Israel 6.69-mln-USD fine for competition law violations

JERUSALEM, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. social media giant Meta Platforms will pay the Israeli treasury an agreed fine of 25 million shekels (6.69 million U.S. dollars), the Israel Competition Authority (ICA) said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to the statement, Meta failed to report to the ICA its acquisitions of Israel's Redkix, whose product combines email and team messaging, in 2018, and the chatbot startup Servicefriend in 2019 before completing them.

Under Israeli competition law, a company holding a monopolistic market share must notify the ICA when signing an agreement to purchase another company, and await approval.

The authority noted that when the transactions were signed, Meta held a monopolistic market share in the social networking market for private users.

As part of the agreement between the authority and Meta, both transactions were retroactively approved. Additionally, Meta committed to reporting any future acquisition deals to the authority in line with competition laws applicable to a monopoly holder.