Google wants judge, not jury, decide upcoming antitrust case in Virginia

Article content

Google on Thursday asked a judge, not a jury, to decide whether the company violated U.S. antitrust laws by monopolizing the technology that supports online advertising.

To support its case, the tech giant wrote a multi-million dollar check to the US government that it says makes moot the government's best case for requiring a jury trial.

Article content

The antitrust case, which is scheduled to go before a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in September, is one of two major lawsuits the Justice Department has filed against Google. While the Virginia case focuses on advertising technology, an ongoing case in the District of Columbia focuses on Google's dominance as a search engine.

Article content

Both sides in the D.C. case presented evidence and made closing arguments. A judge there will decide whether Google violated the law.

Google wants a judge to decide the merits of the case in Virginia as well. The company says in court papers filed Thursday that it is unprecedented for a jury to make a decision in a federal antitrust case brought by the government. She says this case in particular involves “a complex and complex technology ecosystem, which the Department of Justice acknowledged before this court is “highly technical, often abstract, and outside the everyday knowledge of most potential jurors.”

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday evening.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, makes two basic arguments for denying the government's request for a jury trial. First of all, Google claims that the constitutional right to a jury trial does not apply to a civil lawsuit brought by the government.

The right to a jury trial, which is based on the Bill of Rights, “protects citizens against the federal government, not the other way around,” Google’s lawyers wrote in their court filing.

Article content

Article content

However, the company acknowledges in court papers that the Justice Department has a stronger case for demanding a jury in a case in which it seeks money damages, rather than simply seeking equitable relief, such as forcing Google to sell parts of its advertising technology. .

In the Virginia case, the Justice Department is seeking monetary damages on behalf of federal agencies, including the military, that it says were harmed by Google's monopolistic practices and overpaid for online advertising it purchased.

In its court filing, Google asserts that the tort claim was added to the lawsuit at the last minute for the sole purpose of allowing it to seek a jury.

The Justice Department “concocted a last-minute damages claim in an attempt to secure a jury trial in a case they even described as 'highly technical' and 'beyond the scope of the everyday knowledge of most potential jurors,'” the company said in a written letter.

Google's filing on Thursday said the company cut a check to the government equal to three times the amount of losses the government can claim. The exact amount of the check was redacted, but in other court papers, Google said the maximum amount of damages the government was able to prove during the discovery process was less than $1 million.

Article content

Because the law allows antitrust damages to be tripled, the amount of the check would be less than $3 million.

Google says it still disputes the legality of the damages, but says paying the damages the government is seeking eliminates the need for a jury to decide the issue of damages.

While Google says it is unprecedented for a jury to decide a government antitrust case, Google has defended itself before a jury in antitrust cases brought by private companies.

Last year, a San Francisco jury ruled in favor of Epic Games, maker of the popular game Fortnite, in a case the company filed against Google over the Google Play Store, which allows Android phone users to download applications.

In that case, Google tried unsuccessfully at the last minute to convert the trial from a jury trial to a bench trial.

Article content