JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's Competition Commission on Monday said it had referred Facebook owner Meta Platforms to a tribunal for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the market.

In a statement, the regulator accused Meta of "abusing its dominance by engaging in exclusionary conduct geared at preventing competitors or potential competitors from entering into, participating, and expanding in a market".

A spokesman for the technology giant said he would respond to a request for comment shortly.

The commission said Meta had decided to "offboard Gov Chat and #LetsTalk," respectively, a start-up that connects government and citizens and an HIV-awareness organisation from its WhatsApp Business Application Programming Interface.

It also said the company had "imposed and/or selectively enforced exclusionary terms and conditions regulating access to the WhatsApp Business API, mainly restrictions on the use of data".

Meta is facing anti-trust action by several authorities, including the United States, Britain and the European Union.

But it has also taken a $250 billion hit to its share price owing to competition from rivals like TikTok that some argue bolster its case that it faces fierce competition and so is not in a monopoly position.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jan Harvey and Ed Osmond)