The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has once again said that Meta must sell Giphy following an appeal of its initial decision last year.

The regulator first ordered Meta to sell the animated images platform in November 2021 after it found the deal would reduce competition between social media businesses.

However, shortly after Meta appealed the decision with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

The tribunal upheld the authority's decision on five of the six challenged grounds, but was in favour of Meta on a procedural ground relating to the sharing of third-party confidential information.

Over the past three months, an independent CMA panel has been carrying out a final review of the CAT's findings.

It found that Meta would be able to expand its already significant market power by "denying or limiting other social media platforms' access to Giphy GIFs and thereby pushing people to Meta-owned sites".

Stuart McIntosh, chair of the independent inquiry group carrying out the remittal investigation, said that the deal has already led to the removal of a potential challenger in the UK display ad market.

"The only way this can be addressed is by the sale of Giphy," continued McIntosh. "This will promote innovation in digital advertising, and also ensure UK social media users continue to benefit from access to Giphy."

According to the UK watchdog, Meta's platforms make up 73 per cent of user time spent on social media in the UK.

The CMA also claimed that the merger would enable changing the terms of access – for example, it could require Giphy customers, such as TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat, to provide more data from UK users in order to access Giphy GIFs.




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