WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - Facebook sent a petition to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday asking for Chair Lina Khan to be recused from the FTC's antitrust case against the company, a step that could imperil the agency's lawsuit against it.
The FTC sued Facebook in December, alleging that the social media giant broke antitrust law in buying photo-sharing site Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp. A U.S. judge in June dismissed the complaint but gave the agency a roadmap for how to rewrite it and gave it a deadline of July 29 to refile it.
The company asked that Khan not be permitted to participate in deciding whether and how the FTC’s case against Facebook should proceed. Since the two current Republican commissioners voted to oppose the FTC lawsuit against Facebook in December, Khan's recusal would leave two Democrats to vote for a new lawsuit. A tie vote means that the matter would not go forward.
"Chair Khan has consistently made well-documented statements about Facebook and antitrust matters that would lead any reasonable observer to conclude that she has prejudged the Facebook antitrust case brought by the FTC,” said a Facebook spokesperson in a statement.
"To protect the fairness and impartiality of these proceedings, we have requested that Chair Khan recuse herself from involvement with the FTC’s antitrust case against Facebook."
The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.