Facebook Seeks To Preempt Troubling Country By Country EU Review Of WhatsApp Buy

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has asked the European Union to review its plan to buy Internet messaging service WhatsApp.

The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday that instead of risking long-term delay to individual country review of the deal, that Facebook has asked the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, to review the deal.

The newspaper said that a European Commission spokesman declined to comment.

In February, Facebook said it would buy WhatsApp for about $16 billion in cash and stock. The deal is now valued at $19 billion.

WhatsApp has more than 450 million users per day with 70 percent of those users using the application on a daily basis. The WhatsApp team will remain in Mountain View, California.