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In
a short statement, China’s National Development and Reform
Commission, the country's top planning agency, said it was
prohibiting a foreign acquisition of Manus and had required all
the parties to withdraw from the deal. It did not specifically
name Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
The decision was made by the commission’s Office of the Working
Mechanism for Security Review of Foreign Investment in
accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, the statement
said. It came after Chinese authorities said they were looking
into the deal earlier this year.
The commission did not elaborate on the reasons for the ban.
Meta first announced that it was acquiring Manus in December in
a rare case of a major U.S. tech group buying an AI company with
strong links to China. Its deal with Manus, whose
“general-purpose” AI agent can perform multi-step complex work
autonomously, was expected to help expand AI offerings across
Meta’s platforms.
Meta had said there would be “no continuing Chinese ownership
interests in Manus” and that Manus would discontinue its
services and operations in China. But China said in January that
it would investigate whether the acquisition would be consistent
with its laws and regulations.
China’s commerce ministry said at the time that any enterprises
engaging in outward investment, technology exports, data
transfers and cross-border acquisitions must comply with Chinese
law. Meta had said most of Manus’ employees were based in
Singapore.
Meta said on Monday in a response that the transaction “complied
fully with applicable law.” “We anticipate an appropriate
resolution to the inquiry,” the California-based company said in
a statement.
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