Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., will give testimony in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which claims that the company's proposed acquisition of VR content producer Within Unlimited should be stopped because it would 'substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly' in that market.

In a court document delivered on Friday to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the FTC listed 18 witnesses it intended to cross-examine. Zuckerberg, Within CEO Chris Milk, and Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth were among the witnesses.

Additionally, defendants Meta and Within submitted a witness list on Friday that included their names. The regulator asserts that the proposed acquisition in that market will 'seriously impair competition or seek to create a monopoly.'

According to Meta's legal defence, the FTC's conclusory, hypothetical, and contradictory claims don't persuadely present any facts to indicate that any alleged market for VR Deliberate Fitness apps is 'oligopolistic' as to either behaviour or structure. For an undisclosed fee, Facebook agreed to purchase Within in October 2021. 

The FTC charged the business and Zuckerberg with seeking to 'illegally purchase' in July. At the time, John Newman, the deputy director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, stated: 'Meta is trying to buy its way to the top, rather than competing on the merits.''

The FTC's complaint has been rejected by Meta, who says it is based on 'idealogy and guesswork, not fact.' The case might be another expensive setback for a business that is having trouble persuading the public and Wall Street of its future plans. This week, Meta revealed that its Reality Labs VR and AR branch is losing more money than ever in its most recent quarterly report. The company lost $3.7 billion in Q3 2022.