EU antitrust regulators to decide Facebook acquisition of Kustomer by Aug 2

EU antitrust regulators will decide by Aug. 2 whether to clear Facebook’s acquisition of U.S. customer service startup Kustomer, a filing on the European Commission website showed.

The world’s largest social network announced the deal in November to help it scale up its instant messaging app WhatsApp, which has reported a jump in usage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The EU competition regulator wants to vet more tech, pharma and biotech startup deals for signs of so-called killer acquisitions where tech giants buy nascent rivals to close them down. Austria had asked the Commission to take over its review.