Google's ad-tech antitrust suit headed for federal courtroom next March
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Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) will be seeing a courtroom sooner than expected in one of its landmark federal antitrust cases.
A U.S. magistrate judge in Virginia has directed that pretrial work in the Justice Dept. case over Google's advertising technology business be completed by January, setting the stage for a trial as soon as next March.
Google and the DOJ had proposed extending pretrial work through July 2024, with Google arguing for more time for discovery due to a long head start on the DOJ's part, but that overture was rejected.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema will hold a Jan. 18 hearing to set a specific trial date - and had already signaled that a quicker trial was in the offing, after telling the parties to "put your running shoes on" in response to Google's (failed) bid earlier in March to move the lawsuit to New York from Virginia.
The Justice Dept. and eight states filed suit against Google in January, accusing the company of violating the antitrust Sherman Act and calling for a breakup of the ad-tech business.