The case, which is targeted on Google’s promoting know-how, remains to be wending its approach to trial. The Justice Division and 17 states are searching for $300 million and probably extra from Google, alleging in federal court docket in Virginia that the corporate is hurting rivals by monopolizing key promoting applied sciences that companies have to generate income on-line.
U.S. District Decide Leonie M. Brinkema rejected Google’s claims, calling allegations of bias “basically a purple herring protection.”
Kanter has constructed a status as an adversary of Large Tech, beforehand representing shoppers like Google critic Yelp as a accomplice on the Kanter Regulation Group. After President Biden nominated him to steer the Justice Division’s antitrust division in 2021, Kanter was recused from the Google case for his first 12 months on the division, and was approved to work on it after that. Kanter was re-recused in April, after Google retained his former employer, legislation agency Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, to characterize them within the case.
The Virginia listening to is a reminder of the Justice Division’s multipronged offensive: Prosecutors will get two swings to attempt to nail Google on antitrust expenses, showing earlier than one court docket in Washington and one in Virginia.
The primary of the 2 instances — which revolves round Google’s dominance within the search and search promoting sectors — started trial in Washington to a lot fanfare on Tuesday, marking the primary time the Justice Division has taken a significant tech firm to court docket for antitrust points in additional than 20 years.
On the Friday listening to, Brinkema admonished an legal professional for the tech firm to concentrate on what she described as “large discovery issues” within the case. The court docket discovered that Google failed to supply tens of millions of paperwork topic to discovery earlier than a choose’s deadline this summer time.
“For my part, it is a mistake,” Brinkema stated of the allegations involving Kanter. “Google must concentrate on … whether or not the promoting platform is anti-competitive — that’s the case.”
Justice Division legal professional Aaron Teitelbaum argued that Google was “making an attempt to raise its disagreement” with the division’s staffing selections — a reference to Kanter’s hiring — “right into a constitutional challenge.” However Supreme Courtroom precedent establishes that questioning an legal professional needs to be performed solely in extraordinary circumstances, which weren’t current within the Google antitrust litigation, Teitelbaum argued.
Though the investigation started in 2019, beneath the Trump administration, Google legal professional Eric Mahr argued that it kicked into excessive gear solely after Kanter obtained concerned.
“Mr. Kanter, together with the DOJ’s chief economist, who was not the chief economist on the time, appeared earlier than the Antitrust Division on his personal behalf to foyer DOJ to deliver this case that he introduced 11 weeks later,” Mahr stated.
Mahr famous that the Justice Division has stated profession workers additionally accepted the Google ad-tech lawsuit, however he added, “Mr. Kanter shouldn’t be allowed to cover behind the profession workers, when he directed them to do this.”
Brinkema stated, “I would agree with you if Mr. Kanter was the only legal professional on this case.” The choose famous that Democratic and Republican state attorneys basic from 17 states had been co-plaintiffs within the DOJ’s lawsuit.
The Washington Submit is a member of the Information Media Alliance, a commerce affiliation that Kanter has labored with prior to now.
The choose famous that the Justice Division remains to be searching for tens of millions of paperwork in discovery from Google, which the tech firm has not produced regardless of a choose’s deadline earlier this month.
“It is advisable to get this case extra targeted,” Brinkema instructed Mahr. “There are large discovery issues.”
