Strictly speaking, the title is wrong:
Facebook never bought Giphy, it prepared an acquisition whose execution was now blocked.
Facebook never bought Giphy, it prepared an acquisition whose execution was now blocked.
Clause 3:
Facebook completed the acquisition of GIPHY on 15 May 2020, but has been required to hold the businesses separate since 9 June 2020, when the CMA imposed an Initial Enforcement Order (which was amended by a Variation Order on 29 June 2021).
Clause 63:
As noted above, we have decided that the sale of GIPHY is the only effective remedy to the SLCs that we have found. While divestiture of the acquired business is not an uncommon outcome when the CMA finds an SLC, divestiture of the GIPHY business poses particular challenges arising as a consequence of the completion of the Merger, and Facebook’s related actions, namely the termination of GIPHY’s revenue function and team, the transfer of almost all GIPHY staff on to Facebook employment contracts and the transfer of GIPHY’s back office functions to Facebook. These actions took place prior to the CMA issuing its Initial Enforcement Order holding the Facebook and GIPHY businesses separate and mean that, in several respects, GIPHY is in a significantly weaker position than it was pre-Merger.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61a4bfa2e90e0...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-directs-facebook-to-s...
In any case, it's very interesting to look at Meta's proposals (which were ultimately rejected) [1]
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61a4bfa2e90e0...