Kustomer offers CRM solutions that help businesses communicate with consumers easily via emails, calls, and even Whatsapp
Facebook announced a deal with Kustomer in November 2020, stating that it will help them scale up Whatsapp, which has seen a rise in post-pandemic usage. On the other hand, the EU Commission and other regulatory bodies believe that this acquisition could hurt the competition.
Facebook comes with a solution
In their bid to secure approval for this multi-million dollar acquisition, Facebook has offered remedies to ensure that the competition will not be at a disadvantage to rid the commission of any doubts. For example, they have suggested working on interoperability issues that allow different technologies to work together.
Furthermore, they believe that the acquisition will increase competition in the CRM messaging space, opening doors for innovation. However, the question remains if it will make Facebook too big to be really competitive?
The EU Commission will give its final verdict on January 28th but has declined to comment on the case for now.
Current approvals
The EU Commission is currently obtaining feedback from Facebook’s competitors on the deal. The Austrian competition agency reached out to the EU executive to take up this case using the power given under article 22.
So far, the tech giants have the green light from Britain and Australia, but they still need approval from the EU antitrust committee. Speculations suggest that they will get the green light to move forward on the deal, but we will have to wait till the commission announces it publicly.
Facebook will need to wait just over a month to get the final verdict. If the deal goes through, it could be beneficial for Facebook, but only time will tell what it means for their competition.
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