The Competition Commission wants the Competition Tribunal to prosecute social media giant Meta Platforms Inc, previously known as Facebook Inc for abuse of dominance.
The Commission made the findings after GovChat and, #LetsTalk filed a complaint against Facebook, WhatsApp, and Facebook South Africa in 2020.
The Commission is accusing Facebook of offboarding GovChat and #LetsTalk from the WhatsApp Business Application Programming Interface.
The WhatsApp Business API allows businesses and the government to message at scale, among other things.
It’s also saying Facebook selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions regulating access to the WhatsApp Business API.
The Commission says this is in contravention of the Competition Act.
It wants the companies to cough out 10 percent of their collective turnover.
The Commission also wants the Tribunal to interdict Facebook from off-boarding GovChat from the WhatsApp Business API.