Britain's competition regulator said on Friday it had fined Facebook-owner Meta 1.5 million pounds (R31 million) over fresh issues regarding its purchase of Giphy, a sanction that the U.S. firm said it would accept.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has taken a tough line with major tech groups in recent years, investigating their dominance of markets such as digital advertising and seeking to block the Facebook-Giphy deal.

The CMA ordered Meta to sell animated images platform Giphy, which it acquired for a reported R6.1 billion in May 2020, after it decided the remedies offered by the U.S. company did not answer its concerns over the impact to digital advertising.

The CMA said on Friday that Meta had failed to comply with certain aspects of its requirements in regard to the handling of Giphy, with the U.S. firm failing to notify the UK regulator that key staff had left.