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Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) scored a legal victory after a federal court dismissed the antitrust complaints filed against it by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of states.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington D.C. granted the social network giant's request to dismiss the lawsuits. The judge's decision is a major blow to the federal consumer watchdog and the coalition of states led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In the antitrust complaints filed in December last year, the FTC and the coalition of states alleged that Facebook engaged in anticompetitive business practices. Facebook allegedly eliminated threats to its monopoly power in the Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services market by acquiring its smaller rivals including Instagram and WhatsApp and imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers.

The FTC and the states argued that the social network giant violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits anti-competitive or monopolistic business practices.

Facebook sought dismissal citing that the complaints failed to provide adequate facts to support the allegations that it has monopoly power in the Personal Social Networking Services market and willfully maintains that power.

In his opinion, Judge Boasberg made it clear that he does not agree with all of Facebook's arguments. However, he agreed that the FTC's complaint must be dismissed because it is legally inadequate.

"Although the Court does not agree with all of Facebook's contentions here, it ultimately concurs that the agency's Complaint is legally insufficient and must therefore be dismissed. The FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims— namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) services. The Complaint contains nothing on that score save the naked allegation that the company has had and still has a “dominant share of th[at] market (in excess of 60%).” wrote Judge Boasberg.

He also clarified that the Court dismissed only the agency's complaint and not the case.

According to Judge Boasberg, "In this unusual context, the FTC’s inability to offer any indication of the metric(s) or method(s) it used to calculate Facebook’s market share renders its vague “60%-plus” assertion too speculative and conclusory to go forward. Because this defect could conceivably be overcome by re-pleading, however, the Court will dismiss only the Complaint, not the case, and will do so without prejudice to allow Plaintiff to file an amended Complaint."

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