Federal Judge Grants Summary Judgment to Analysis Group Client Meta in High-Profile Antitrust Suit from Facebook Users, Resolving Issues Before Trial

October 1, 2025

Analysis Group client Meta was awarded summary judgment in a long-running antitrust trial brought by Facebook users.

The user plaintiffs claimed that Meta misrepresented its data protection practices and failed to impose privacy safeguards to attract more users to the platform, obtain market power in the alleged social networking services market, and diminish competition. The user plaintiffs claimed antitrust injury by reasoning that, but for Meta’s alleged market power, the company would have had to pay users to use Facebook. The user plaintiffs sought to certify a class consisting of every Facebook user between December 2016 and December 2020, and sought class-wide damages. Based in part on testimony from Analysis Group academic affiliate Catherine Tucker, US District Judge James Donato (N.D. Cal.) denied certification of the class, writing in his opinion that the plaintiffs’ expert’s theory of antitrust injury was “a conclusion of fiat rather than evidence.”

Subsequently, the user plaintiffs sought to proceed as individuals, while Meta filed for summary judgment. Supported by an Analysis Group team led by Managing Principal Aaron Yeater and Vice Presidents Ishita Rajani and Carlos Chiapa, Professor Tucker filed an expert report and testified at deposition, again rebutting the plaintiff’s expert’s theory that Facebook users would have been compensated for using Facebook but for Meta’s exercise of market power.

Judge Donato granted summary judgment in favor of Meta. “Overall, plaintiffs have not established that there is anything new or different in [the expert’s] proposed trial testimony,” he wrote in his opinion, and, thus, “plaintiffs face an insurmountable barrier to proving antitrust injury.” The ruling resolved the issues in the case without trial.