The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision is a setback for antitrust regulators who had asked for a breakup of the company. But while the judge dismissed the FTC’s complaint, he declined to dismiss the case overall, saying the issues with the FTC’s lawsuit could be addressed if the agency filed an amended complaint.

Boasberg’s ruling — a respite for Facebook in the midst of constant scrutiny from regulators around the globe — immediately prompted further calls for Congress to update the nation’s antitrust laws.

Critics of Facebook, including House lawmakers in a groundbreaking report last summer, had accused Facebook of targeting small startups such as Instagram early on in those companies’ lifecycles, believing they were a threat to Facebook’s power. That so-called “buy-or-bury” strategy allegedly helped Facebook maintain its status as a top-tier social networking company.

“We are reviewing this decision and considering our legal options,” said a spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the leading state AGs on that case.

In their lawsuits, the states and the FTC had also alleged that Facebook acted anti-competitively by denying competing apps access to the social media giant’s platform. Boasberg wrote in Monday’s opinion that there is nothing illegal about Facebook having a policy of preventing interoperability with third-party apps. He acknowledged that while Facebook could possibly have violated antitrust law in executing its policy, the lawsuits came too late to be applicable.