The European Commission said on Monday that it has sent a statement of objections, or charges, to Meta over violation of the bloc’s rules and intends to impose interim measures to prevent serious and irreparable harm to rivals, mirroring moves by Italy’s competition watchdog in December.

“We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.

“That is why we are considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe,” the statement added.

–Reuters–