As far as I can tell, the watchdog and CMA started doing their job immediately when the news of the acquisition broke. Then three years of back and forth and legal appeals followed, and now Facebook has finally lost, as was expected three years ago.
The original order for the sale came in 2021, after an extended investigation from that same year, following an initial investigation started June 2020, about a month after the sale became public knowledge.
Giphy and Facebook didn't give the CMA an opportunity to block the sale before it happened, so of course antitrust action had to occur after the fact. That's not regulatory overreach, that's lack of a time machine.
The original order for the sale came in 2021, after an extended investigation from that same year, following an initial investigation started June 2020, about a month after the sale became public knowledge.
Giphy and Facebook didn't give the CMA an opportunity to block the sale before it happened, so of course antitrust action had to occur after the fact. That's not regulatory overreach, that's lack of a time machine.