Apple’s Defense Strengthened by Google’s Monopoly Ruling in US Case

APPLE could emerge as the winner after Alphabet’s Google lost a battle with U.S. antitrust regulators this week, with the ruling bolstering the iPhone maker’s defense in its own legal battle with U.S. antitrust prosecutors, legal experts said.

A federal judge on Monday ruled in a high-profile case that Google’s search engine is an illegal monopoly, largely siding with state and federal antitrust regulators. But he rejected claims by several U.S. states that one of Google’s advertising tools was designed to give the company an advantage over Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Experts say the piece could help Apple defend itself in its own antitrust case.

The ruling underscored Supreme Court precedent that companies almost never have a “duty of conduct” toward their rivals, said Herbert Hovenkamp, ​​who teaches antitrust law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. “Any case, including Apple’s, where a duty of conduct is a significant part of the deal will be scrutinized,” he said.

The state argued that Google was hindering competition by not offering key features for rival ads through Search Ads 360, a tool for managing marketing campaigns across multiple search engines.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed with Google that it doesn’t have to encourage competition by adapting to its rival. “Their claim raises a number of questions that this court is not in a position to address,” the judge said.

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That part of the ruling is good for the defendants, said William Kovacic, a professor at George Washington University Law School and a former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. “It’s also a reminder that this is not over yet,” he said, adding that the case and appeals could take years.

There is no doubt that Apple could ultimately lose billions of dollars over the Google case if a judge bars the search giant from paying the iPhone maker and others to set its search engine as the default on their devices.

Mehta noted that Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers and maintains its dominant market share. But Google’s ruling could give Apple a boost in a case in which the Justice Department alleges it hindered the development of third-party apps and devices.

The company last week filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that imposing reasonable restrictions on third-party developers’ access to its technology is not anticompetitive conduct and that forcing it to share technology with competitors would stifle innovation.

The judge presiding over Apple’s case does not have to follow Mehta’s ruling, although Apple could try to use it to persuade him.

The Justice Department will have to show that Apple’s interactions with developers were more similar to Google’s payments to device makers, Hovenkamp said. “To win, the government will have to show some kind of agreement because then the standard becomes more aggressive,” he said. AFP