Facebook-Reliance Jio deal gets a clean chit from CCI

The Facebook-Reliance Jio deal that was announced back in April this year has received a clean chit from the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Facebook invested $5.7 billion, or ₹43,574 crore, in Jio Platforms earlier this year for a 9.99% stake in the company. This made the social media giant the biggest minority shareholder in Jio Platforms.

CCI, earlier this month, announced that it was reviewing Facebook’s acquisition of a 10% stake in Reliance Industries Limited’s digital wing, Jio Platforms. At the time, the CCI Chairman Askok Kumar Gupta in a statement to Bloomberg had said that “strong network effects, high returns to scale and access to a huge amount of data” could lead to an increase in anti-competitive behaviour.

Now, nearly a week after CCI first began its review, the governmental body has given its blessings. As per a report by TechCrunch, CCI has approved Facebook’s acquisition of a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms. The acquisition will be done by Jaadhu Holdings LLC, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Facebook that the social media giant created earlier this year.

As a part of the deal, the two companies will also focus on 60 million micro, small and medium businesses in India. In addition to that, the two companies will work closely to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest kirana stores with JioMart using WhatsApp.