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1st LD Writethru: EU fines Facebook 110 mln euros over WhatsApp takeover

Xinhua, May 18, 2017 Adjust font size:

The European Commission on Thursday imposed a fine of 110 million euros (122 million U.S. dollars) on Facebook for providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover.

The decision came six months after the EU's executive arm opened a case against Facebook in December. After investigation, the Commission now concluded that facebook has denied its capability of matching user accounts with Whatsapp's during the merger probe in 2014.

According to the EU regulations, Facebook could have faced a fine of up to 1 percent of its annual sales of last year, which amounts to some 250 million euros.

Tuesday's 110-million-euro fine was "both proportionate and deterrent," said the Commission in a statement, adding that the lesser fine was due to Facebook's cooperation during its probe.

"Facebook acknowledged its infringement of the rules and waived its procedural rights to have access to the file and to an oral hearing. This allowed the Commission to conduct the investigation more efficiently," said the Commission in a statement.

"The Commission has taken Facebook's cooperation into account in setting the level of the fine," the statement said.

It added that the decision will neither revise Facebook's takeover of Whatsapp nor affect other ongoing cases against Facebook, including national antitrust procedures and data protection issues. Endit