Google almost became a monopoly

It has finally come to the fore that Google pulled out of the Yahoo Search deal as it feared a protracted legal battle that would damage reputation and perhaps even to its stock price. It was revealed at the time that the US Justice Department was planning to file an action against the deal. In an interview with AmLaw Daily, the attorney spearheading the potential case against Google, Sanford Litvack talks about it.

Here are some excerpts from the article/interview:

“We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day,” says Litvack, who rejoins Hogan & Hartson today. “We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.”

The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Litvack tells the Am Law Daily in one of his first interviews since the companies canned the venture. Section 1 bans agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. Section 2 makes it unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade.

“It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly,” Litvack says.

Litvack acknowledges that Microsoft Corporation and other companies lobbied the department to block the agreement, both publicly and and in private meetings. Litvack insists, though, that Microsoft’s lobbying had no bearing on his recommended course of action or on the division’s ultimate decision.

The search business is obviously a high stakes game and all sorts of games are being played.