Apple’s emergency motion to stay the Justice Department’s upcoming remedies trial against Google for violating antitrust laws was swiftly denied. The motion, filed last Thursday, was denied by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta on Sunday, with the judge saying a delay would unnecessarily add months to a trial that has already taken years to get to.
It would also allow Google to continue benefiting from its illegal stranglehold on online search, the judge said.
“Preserving the status quo by granting a stay, as Apple urges, would only perpetuate this unlawful activity and is therefore contrary to the public interest,” Judge Mehta said in his ruling.
The judge noted the court had already “concluded that Google violated federal antitrust law by entering into exclusive search distribution agreement with various companies (including Apple) to achieve and maintain a monopoly” in online search. That landmark ruling was made last August.
Apple, notably, gets paid $20 billion annually to make Google the default search engine on its devices, court documents revealed last year.
Apple, in its emergency filing last week, said it would “suffer clear and substantial irreparable harm” if it cannot participate in the remedies trial. The tech giant, which is the world’s most valuable company, with a market cap of $3.4 trillion, was angling to have a larger voice at the trial; instead, it will now watch from sideline.
In October, the U.S. Department of Justice said it is considering breaking up Google to dismantle the company’s search engine monopoly.
“The starting point for addressing Google’s unlawful conduct is undoing its effects on search distribution,” the DOJ said at the time. “For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users.”
When it comes to particular measures, the DoJ could be looking for a federal judge to compel Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to sell off its Chrome browser.
Chrome, according to stats provided by SimilarWeb, is the most popular web browser in the U.S., with 54% of Americans using it as their default browser; the next most-used browser is Apple’s Safari, which 33.4% of Americans use first.
With Apple’s stay motion denied, the remedies trial will remain set for April 22.
