Facebook is expected to receive a fine from EU antitrust regulators on Thursday for the “incorrect or misleading information” it provided to investigators who were probing its 2014 purchase of messaging service WhatsApp.

Facebook was charged with misleading EU regulators over its $19bn (£15.4bn) takeover of WhatsApp last December, after it moved to combine WhatsApp data with the social network.

The commission said this breached assurances Facebook had made when the deal was approved in 2014.

In 2014, Facebook had said it would not be able to establish "reliable automated matching between the two companies' user accounts", according to the EU regulator.

Facebook changed the privacy policy of WhatsApp in August 2016, though, which meant data was able to be shared, including phone numbers, which at the time it said would help target adverts.

Approval for the acquisition is not expected to be overturned by the European Commission. However, reports on Wednesday night from a number of sources, including Bloomberg and the Financial Times, said regulators were poised to issue a fine on Thursday.

The European Commission can issue a fine equal to 1pc of Facebook's global turnover, or around $180m. However, it was not clear on Wednesday evening the exact size of tomorrow's expected fine.

The EU executive and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.