Obviously companies must follow local regulations but I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens. Of course legally the UK can do whatever they want, but philosophically regulating this type of behavior feels a bit more unusual and excessively overreaching.
> I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens.
Incorrect.
What the UK decided is that this acquisition can be harmful for UK citizens, and in order to continue doing business in the UK, they must comply with regulation.
This is actually the regulatory institutions of the country acting on behalf of the citizens instead of allowing corporations to freely pursue their monopolistic tendencies.
There's no overreach here. Meta is free to tell the UK to just fuck off and ignore the regulation. But then they would have to stop doing business in the UK (and possibly later on the EU, that tends to be even stricter).
These are countries acting on their own jurisdiction, and companies deciding that doing business in that jurisdiction is more profitable than keeping the acquisition.
