Court Ruling May Be Why Facebook Closed with a Market Cap of Over $1 Trillion for First Time

Social media giant Facebook had much to celebrate on Monday when its stock closed above $1 trillion for the very first time.

Shares were spiking late in the day after the company received a favorable legal ruling that dismissed an antitrust complaint that was brought on by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Facebook is now the the fifth company in the U.S. to hit this milestone. Others are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Facebook shares closed up 4.2% at $355.64 after a favorable legal ruling that dismissed an antitrust complaint brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of state attorneys general.

In the filing, the court stated that the FTC did not prove Facebook maintains a monopoly.

“We are pleased that today’s decisions recognize the defects in the government complaints against Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement. “We compete fairly every day to earn people’s time and attention and will continue to deliver great products for the people and businesses that use our services.”

The FTC sued the company last December, alongside attorneys general from 48 states, claiming the social media company engaged in a systematic strategy to eliminate threats to its monopoly, including the 2012 and 2014 acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, respectively, which the FTC previously cleared.

“Although the Court does not agree with all of Facebook’s contentions here, it ultimately concurs that the agency’s Complaint is legally insufficient and must therefore be dismissed,” reads the filing from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“The FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims — namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services.”

“The Complaint is undoubtedly light on specific factual allegations regarding consumer-switching preferences,” the court wrote. “These allegations — which do not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook’s market share at any point over the past ten years — ultimately fall short of plausibly establishing that Facebook holds market power.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.