Apple has filed an emergency motion with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Thursday regarding Google’s search antitrust case.
The motion requests a stay of possible remedies the Department of Justice may seek after emerging victorious in its antitrust suit accusing Google of sustaining a search monopoly, potentially including spinoffs of its Chrome browser or Android operating system.
Apple asked the court to rule on the motion by Feb. 4, writing, “If Apple’s appeal is not resolved until during or after the remedies trial, Apple may well be forced to stand mute at trial, as a mere spectator, while the government pursues an extreme remedy that targets Apple by name and would prohibit any commercial arrangement between Apple and Google for a decade. This would leave Apple without the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple’s entitlement to compensation for distributing Google search to its users.”
The move is the latest from Apple exploring every legal alternative to protect the billions of dollars in payments it receives from Google to make Google’s search engine the default on its devices,
Earlier this week, Bloomberg Law reported that Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a motion Apple filed last December to participate alongside Google as a party in the case.
Mehta ruled last August that Google unlawfully sustained its monopoly in the online search and advertising market, citing the $26.3 billion it paid to companies, including Apple, in 2021 alone to ensure its standing as the default search engine on mobile devices and web browsers.
Google countered during its appeal the following month that the DOJ’s definition of open web display advertising does not factor in connected television, mobile, or social, where it competes with giants like Amazon and Meta, and that the company believes its display business was weak and experiencing slow revenue growth due to competition from entities such as Criteo, Meta, and The Trade Desk.