Facebook Inc. is facing an antitrust suit over claims that it blocked developer access to its platform in order to eliminate potential competitors, Reuters reported, citing a court filing.

Four companies are seeking class-action status and unspecified damages against the social networking company in the lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Facebook has been in a spat with small app developers over access to the platform's user data. In 2015, U.S. software company Six4Three LLC sued Facebook over allegations that the latter's data policies were anti-competitive and favored certain companies over others.

At the time, the social networking company said the claims lacked merit.