Leading Google's defense will be John Schmidtlein, an experienced antitrust lawyer from the Williams %26 Connolly law firm in Washington. Kanter has a long history of representing technology companies, such as Yelp and Microsoft, in lawsuits accusing Google of anti-competitive behavior. Now that it has been confirmed, Kanter will lead several Justice Department competition cases against large technology companies, including a monopoly lawsuit against Google alleging that the company maintains an illegal monopoly in the digital advertising market. For inquiries related to this message, please contact our support team and indicate the reference identifier below.
For years, Google has accounted for nearly 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anti-competitive tactics to maintain and expand its monopolies on search and search advertising. The FTC has the authority to sue companies for anti-competitive behavior, and the agency is currently involved in litigation against Facebook and Google. Shores's background as a primarily corporate defense lawyer makes him an odd choice to lead an antitrust case against Google, said David Balto, a former antitrust lawyer with the Department of Justice who has done consulting work for Google. The District Court for the District of Columbia will prevent Google from illegally maintaining monopolies through anti-competitive and exclusionary practices in the search and advertising markets, in search and to remedy damage to competition.
In a letter to Justice Department leaders, an outside Google lawyer said that “the reality and the appearance of partiality are justly called into question by Jonathan Kanter's previous work for company critics.”. Kanter had made previous statements criticizing Google, which showed that it had “prejudiced whether it had violated antitrust laws”. On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed that Jonathan Kanter, a Google critic and competition lawyer, would lead the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, which was another progressive victory in the application of antitrust rules under the Biden administration. By filing the lawsuit, the Department seeks to stop Google's anti-competitive behavior and restore competition for American consumers, advertisers and all companies that now depend on the Internet economy.
Google has also hired Susan Creighton, a longtime advisor and partner at the company's leading law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich %26 Rosati. Kanter's previous statements and his work representing competitors who have advocated for the cases brought by the department raise serious concerns about his ability to be impartial, Peter Schottenfels, a Google spokesman, said in a statement. Walker is likely to lead a team of outside lawyers and direct Google's legal strategy and any potential settlement. Google is a limited liability company organized and existing under the laws of the State of Delaware, and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Google has prevented any major search competitor from achieving vital distribution and scale, eliminating competition for most search queries in the United States. Kanter's history as a leader in lawsuits against large technology companies in the past has led critics to ask him to recuse himself from active antitrust cases by the Department of Justice against Google. Kanter “could also add fuel to suggestions that Google's competition could unduly influence the department's actions,” said Google lawyer Virginia Gibson, of the law firm Hogan Lovells. .
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