FTC Seeks Depositions of Investors Behind Instagram, WhatsApp Deals
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia should require the deposition of two venture capitalists who have direct knowledge of the competitive aspects of Meta’s purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp, the FTC said Monday in a filing in…
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docket 1:20-cv-03590 (see 2210270074). The agency is seeking the depositions of Roelof Botha and Jim Goetz. Botha heads Sequoia Capital, which the filing describes as the “only venture capital firm that invested in both Instagram and WhatsApp.” Goetz is a former member of WhatsApp’s board of directors and a retired Sequoia partner. Botha was lead investor in Instagram’s Series B funding, and Goetz led at “least three rounds of investment in WhatsApp and helped negotiate WhatsApp’s eventual acquisition by Meta,” the agency said. Sequoia filed to quash both deposition requests, which the FTC asked the court to reject and instruct deposition before year-end. Their “personal involvement in and knowledge of Instagram and WhatsApp respectively prior to Meta acquiring both companies are plainly relevant to the FTC’s claims that Meta acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate competitive threats that emerged during the shift from desktop to mobile,” the FTC said, arguing the depositions would require “minimal burden” for the two. The agency is seeking information that isn’t relevant to any “issues, claims, or defenses in this antitrust litigation, and is cumulative of other information the FTC already possesses,” Sequoia said. “Moreover, deposing Sequoia’s top executive and its former senior executive on topics more than a decade old is unduly burdensome and not proportional to the needs of this case.” Sequoia said it has fulfilled legal obligations to respond to discovery requests in the case, and the agency is engaging in a “fishing expedition” at the expense of nonparties who have nothing to do with the case.