Facebook owner Meta reached out to EU antitrust regulators some time back in an attempt to settle investigations into its use of customer data and the tying of its classified advertisements service to its social network, people with direct knowledge said. There were very preliminary discussions which so far have not made any progress, the people said.

The EU competition enforcer and Meta declined to comment. The European Commission launched an investigation into Facebook in June last year, focusing on whether the social network unfairly uses advertisers’ data to compete with them in the online classified ads sector.

A second investigation centres on whether Facebook ties its classified ads service Marketplace to its social network to give it an advantage in reaching customers and shut out rival online classified ad services. Settling an antitrust investigation allows a company to stave off possible fines of up to 10 per cent of its global turnover.