recuse himself from google matters google had helped to fund several of his academic works including a 2011 paper google and the limits of antitrust the case against the case against googlea week before he was sworn in the agency announced that it had wrapped up an investigation into google without taking any action while he had not played a direct role in that decision mr wrights emails with google reveal how closely they worked togetherin a 2012 email adam kovacevich a former public policy director at google asked mr wright whether he planned to attend an event in which senator mike lee a republican from utah and vocal critic of google would be speaking at the time mr lee seemed to be toning down his criticism of the companyimagecreditthe new york timesmr kovacevich who left google in 2019 suggested that it might be worth lobbing a question about his comments about google mr wright replied cool absolutely heh maybe get one of my antitrust students to askmr wright also worked closely with google to deflect media criticism of the company when a cnn reporter asked mr wright in an email whether google favoring its own content in search results violated antitrust laws he defended the company in a lengthy reply he forwarded his response to google and added just fyi mr kovacevich responded thanks i encouraged him to get in touchin a 2011 email mr wright asked a legal assistant at google about an outstanding invoice when she said it had already paid 125000 mr wright said there should be another one or twoa brazilian budget squeezethe gap between the deep pockets of the institutes corporate donors and the overseas regulatory agencies is especially stark in a country like brazil where the annual budget for brazils antitrust regulator is about 15 millionbrazils competition authority the administrative council for economic defense better known as cade is clear about its financial constraints so when the institute invited cade officials to attend a conference in 2016 alexandre cordeiro macedo the agencys general superintendent who oversees its antitrust investigations said that they were eager to participate but that it would be difficult to afford sending staffi must let you know however that we are facing severe budgetary restraints and unless the expenses are covered we cannot unfortunately assure we will be able to send a representative said mr cordeirothe institute offered to pay for up to six cade officials to attend the conference in washington since then other cade staff have attended institute conferences in oahu santa monica and tokyo in each case the institute has covered travel hotel transportation and most meals even allowing some officials to spend an extra night at a resort to recover from jet lagsince 2015 27 cade officials have attended the groups conferences according to the agency last year the institute paid for 10 brazilian judges to fly business class to attend a conference at a four seasons hotel in lisbon portugal mr cordeiro was also