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Google avoids jury trial by sending $2.3 million check to US government
(arstechnica.com)
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Google has achieved its goal of avoiding a jury trial in one antitrust case after sending a $2.3 million check to the US Department of Justice.
The US opposed Google's motion to strike the jury demand in a filing last week, arguing that "the check it delivered did not actually compensate the United States for the full extent of its claimed damages" and that "the unilateral offer of payment was improperly premised on Google's insistence that such payment 'not be construed' as an admission of damages."
"To secure this unusual posture, several weeks before filing the Complaint, on the eve of Christmas 2022, DOJ attorneys scrambled around looking for agencies on whose behalf they could seek damages," Google said.
The US and states' lawsuit claimed that Google "corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry" in a plan to "neutralize or eliminate ad tech competitors, actual or potential, through a series of acquisitions" and "wield its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products while disrupting their ability to use competing products effectively."
The US government lawsuit said that federal agencies bought over $100 million in advertising since 2019 and aimed to recover treble damages for Google's alleged overcharges on those purchases.
"She likened receipt of the money, which was paid unconditionally to the government regardless of whether the tech giant prevailed in its arguments to strike a jury trial, as equivalent to 'receiving a wheelbarrow of cash.'"
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