The European Commission is looking into Facebook’s Libra digital currency project to see if it would violate European anti-trust rules, Bloomberg reported, based on Commission documents.

The Commission wants to ascertain, in particular, whether Facebook and allied companies in the Libra Association could illegally shut out their competitors. Europe’s treaty watchdog also wishes to examine how existing services such as Messenger and WhatsApp will relate to the “Calibra” digital portfolio.

While Libra, scheduled to come on stream next year, has been developed by Facebook, it will be managed the Geneva-based Libra Association. Over 20 companies have already become members of the group, including Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Spotify and Uber. By the time Libra is launched, Facebook hopes the alliance will top the hundred-member mark.

Neither the European Commission nor Facebook wished to make any comment on the matter. The social media network has already promised to comply with all of the regulators’ requirements before launching the digital currency on the market.

Facebook has already been investigated by the European Commission, which fined it 110 million euros in 2017 in connection with the purchase of WhatsApp in 2014.

Oscar Schneider

The Brussels Times