Under EU antitrust, Meta offers a solution: display eBay product information, leading to a surge of over 13% in the latter's stock price

On Wednesday Eastern Time, social media giant Meta announced that it will display product listings from competitor eBay on its platform Facebook Marketplace in response to the European Union's antitrust ruling. According to Meta's statement, this collaborative test will initially launch in Germany, France, and the United States. Users can browse eBay's product listings directly on Facebook Marketplace, but the final completion of transactions must still be conducted through the eBay platform. This news drove eBay's stock price to rise over 13% during U.S. trading hours. In November last year, the European Union ruled against Meta for allegedly bundling its classified advertising services with the Facebook platform and imposing unfair trading conditions on competitors in the second-hand goods market. The ruling required Meta to cease related practices and imposed a hefty fine of €798 million (approximately $822 million). However, Meta has clearly stated that it does not recognize the EU's ruling and has appealed to the EU court. Nevertheless, according to a spokesperson for the European Commission, Meta is obligated to comply with the decision within 90 days of the original ruling. This antitrust case against Meta is one of the last waves of actions initiated by former EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager during her tenure against large tech companies. Under her leadership, Brussels regulators imposed fines totaling billions of euros on several tech giants, including over €8 billion in fines against Alphabet's Google. It is worth noting that, in addition to the EU's ruling, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also investigated whether Facebook Marketplace posed competitive issues. However, unlike the EU's tough stance, the CMA chose to accept the concessions proposed by Meta and ultimately did not pursue the investigation further