There’s no need to compel Google to produce documents “that it has already agreed to produce,” Wilson Sonsini counsel for Google wrote U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York in Manhattan in a letter response Wednesday (docket 1:21-md-03010). The plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation challenging Google’s alleged anticompetitive hold on the digital ad tech market wrote the judge April 21 seeking to compel Google to produce 800,000 documents it produced for DOJ’s digital ad tech investigation but has withheld from the MDL plaintiffs (see 2304240002). There’s also no need for the court “to accelerate the timeline on which Google will produce these documents, as Google anticipates producing them before the deadline for substantial completion of document productions,” Wilson Sonsini attorney Justina Sessions told the judge. “Google is working diligently to produce these and other documents,” she said. The documents at issue are responsive to some of the 301 production requests that the MDL plaintiffs “served on the last day they were permitted to do so,” she said. By the time the plaintiffs filed their pre-motion letter seeking production of these documents without delay, “they knew that Google had sent the documents to a vendor for processing and that Google would then promptly produce them before the substantial completion deadline,” said Sessions. The plaintiffs “appear to take issue with the amount of time that it takes to process the documents for production,” she said. “Preparing these approximately 800,000 documents for production takes processing and quality-control-checking time,” she said. “However, this process is already underway by Google’s document vendor. Google will produce the documents at issue promptly once they are prepared.”
The plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation challenging Google’s alleged anticompetitive hold on the digital ad tech market want to compel Google to produce 800,000 documents it produced for DOJ’s digital ad tech investigation but has withheld from the MDL plaintiffs, they wrote U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York in a letter Friday (docket 1:21-md-03010). Google hasn’t explained why it would take four to six weeks to produce documents it has already produced to other parties in related litigation, said the letter. “Google’s continued withholding of the DOJ documents is unjustified and is delaying efficient progress” in the MDL, it said. Producing the 800,000 documents involves “only minimal burden for Google,” it said. “The documents have already been reviewed by Google and prepared for production. Google can just push a button.” Producing the documents “would significantly aid the progress of document discovery” in the MDL, it said.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin for Northern Illinois in Chicago set oral argument for July 20 at 2 p.m. CDT on the motions from defendants T-Mobile and SoftBank to dismiss the class action to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy, said a clerk’s entry Friday (docket 1:22-cv-03189). The seven consumer plaintiffs in the class action, all customers of AT&T or Verizon, allege the anticompetitive nature of the T-Mobile/Sprint combination in 2020 caused their own wireless rates to soar (see 2212060052).
Arizona joined the DOJ and 16 states "to fight for fair competition in digital advertising” in the bipartisan antitrust case against Google, said Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) in a Wednesday news release. Plaintiffs, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, allege Google monopolizes digital advertising technologies that connect website publishers looking to sell advertising space with advertisers trying to reach customers. The lawsuit (docket 1:23-cv-00108) asserts Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act’s prohibitions against monopolization after its acquisition of DoubleClick, which controlled 60% of online advertising when it bought it in 2008 (see 2304180007).
Google’s digital advertising technology monopoly is "limiting people’s access to ideas, information, goods, and services,” while the company is profiting by taking more than 30% of the advertising dollars on its platform, alleged North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) Monday, announcing the state joined DOJ and 16 states in a bipartisan antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ complaint (docket 1:23-cv-00108), amended Monday to add more states, including North Carolina, asserts Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act’s prohibitions against monopolization after its acquisition of DoubleClick, which controlled 60% of online advertising when it bought it in 2008. Federal regulators allowed the purchase then because they believed enough alternatives existed that there would still be competition, said Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) last week (see 2304040024) announcing his state’s participation in the case. After Google acquired DoubleClick, Google launched its own branded advertising tools and made DoubleClick available only to advertisers that used its internal ad buying tools, plaintiffs allege. Google used exclusive agreements with other tech companies, bought other competing online advertising technologies, and forced advertisers and website publishers to use only its products, which plaintiffs allege “suppressed competition and allowed Google to dominate the online advertising market.”
U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York signed an order Thursday (docket 1:21-md-03010) granting plaintiff Inform leave to file within 21 days an amended complaint in the massive digital ad tech antitrust multidistrict litigation against Google consolidated under the judge. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred Inform’s action for inclusion in Castel’s MDL on Feb. 23. It had been pending in the Northern District of Georgia to which the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court had remanded it. Inform sought leave to conform its complaint to Castel’s earlier rulings in the MDL. Google opposed Inform’s application as untimely, a waste of time and futile (see 2304110019), but Castel disagreed. Google’s “futility argument” was premised on its assertion that Inform lacks standing, said the judge. But the 11th Circuit ruled Inform “adequately alleged” Article III standing and antitrust standing, said the judge. Inform “acted in a reasonably timely manner following remand” by the 11th Circuit, said the judge’s order. “Any defect in the pleading may be raised on a motion to dismiss.” The court “accepts good faith representation” that Inform intends to conform its pleading to the court's previous rulings, said the order. “Any new or additional theories of liability should be highlighted in a marked copy of the pleading also filed within 21 days,” it said. Google may file a pre-motion letter in support of a motion to dismiss 21 days after the filing of Inform’s amended pleading, it said. Inform will respond to the pre-motion letter seven days later.
Google opposes giving plaintiff Inform access to Google’s discovery materials in the massive digital ad tech antitrust multidistrict litigation, Google counsel Justina Sessions of Wilson Sonsini wrote U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York in a letter Monday (docket 1:21-md-03010). Inform filed an amended complaint “that had little to do with ad tech and delayed moving to join this MDL, yet now demands immediate access to Google’s MDL document productions that are largely irrelevant to Inform,” said Sessions. Inform “strategically chose to wait” more than three years before trying to join the MDL, she said. During that time, it filed two complaints in Georgia, “the latest of which is subject to a still-pending motion to dismiss from Google,” she said. Now Inform wants to file a third complaint, she said. Its request to amend “yet again,” which Google opposes, “is an admission that Inform’s existing, operative complaint is deficient and has little to do with ad tech,” said Sessions. “Under these circumstances,” Inform shouldn’t be given access “to millions of Google documents merely because it has become part of this MDL,” she said. Google asks discovery of and by Inform should occur, if at all, after Inform’s request to amend and Google’s motion to dismiss are resolved, she said. “It would be inefficient and unnecessary at this juncture to provide Inform with any discovery from Google,” she said. Inform would be entitled to the discovery it now seeks only if “it completely rewrote its complaint to add entirely new ad tech claims mirroring those already at issue in this MDL,” and if its new complaint survived a motion to dismiss, said Sessions. “This is unlikely.”
A March 17 request for the court to compel production of purchaser emails and mailing addresses is “improper,” said motion defendants Tegna, Gray Media and Meredith, in a Monday opposition response (docket 1:18-cv-6785) to plaintiffs' discovery motion for certain documents in a TV advertising antitrust case in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Plaintiffs Thoughtworks, One Source Heating & Cooling, Hunt Adkins and Fish Furniture’s request for contact information is “premature” when there is no settlement or certified class, is “irrelevant to the substance of their claims,” and is “disproportionate to the needs of this case,” said the response. Plaintiffs should have made their request when negotiating defendants’ data productions, and they should have filed their motion by the Sept. 1 court-mandated deadline, the response said. Plaintiffs’ motion fails to explain how purchaser emails and mailing addresses will allow them to evaluate the putative class’ viability in light of “ample data” already in their possession, it said. Plaintiffs’ motion is “untimely” and a “separate ground for denial,” said motion defendants, noting the parties negotiated the scope of the motion defendants’ production of purchaser transactional data over a period of months in compliance with the Stipulation and Order Regarding the Production of Electronically Stored Information. At no point during negotiations did plaintiffs request the contact information they now demand, it said. Their deadline to move to compel expired Sept. 1, and they didn’t seek an extension when it was clear the parties were at an impasse, it said. As purchasers of broadcast television spot advertising, plaintiffs allege defendants engaged in “price fixing” beginning in 2014, facilitated by an “anticompetitive information exchange between and among certain major television station owners and operators to artificially inflate” the prices of spot ads in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will structure in two parts Thursday’s daylong hearing on Google’s motions for summary judgment in two cases challenging its alleged monopolies in search and search advertising, said a scheduling order Monday. The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. with Google’s 45-minute argument in support of its motion against the DOJ’s complaint with 11 states (docket 1:20-cv-03010), said the order. DOJ’s and the state plaintiffs’ argument in opposition to the motion will last 60 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Google rebuttal, it said. After a lunch break, Google will have 45 minutes of argument in support of its motion against the complaint by 35 states, plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico (docket 1:20-cv-03715), said the order. The state plaintiffs will then have 60 minutes of argument in opposition, followed by 15 minutes of Google rebuttal, it said. At the start of each side’s argument, counsel “shall address what they contend is the proper analytical framework the court must use to evaluate whether Google’s alleged conduct is exclusionary,” and whether the plaintiffs have met their prima facie burden under Section 2 of the Sherman Act “by demonstrating anticompetitive effect,” said the order.
The U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco should reject the various plaintiffs’ oppositions to Google’s March 16 motion to defer or stay trial in the antitrust multidistrict litigation, pending a 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court decision on Google's Rule 23(f) challenge of the district court's order certifying a consumer class (see 2303310021), said Google’s reply brief Thursday (docket 3:21-cv-05227). No plaintiff “suggests that the entirety of this action should still be tried in November,” said Google. The consumer and state plaintiffs “propose a complex bifurcated -- or even trifurcated -- proceeding,” it said. Their proposal “requires a first jury to decide some elements of antitrust liability but defers antitrust injury -- an essential element of liability -- to a second jury and second trial,” it said. “Not only is this proposal highly inefficient, it risks Seventh Amendment error by submitting interwoven issues of anticompetitive effects and antitrust injury to different juries.” Plaintiffs Epic Games and the Match Group propose proceeding to trial in November regardless of whether a stay is warranted in the other plaintiffs’ cases, said Google. The states’ attorneys general “make a similar pitch,” it said. “Again, this proposal is needlessly complicated,” resulting in a “multiplicity of trials” on substantially identical claims, it said. “Worse, this proposal would effectively create separate trials for each side of an admittedly two-sided market, putting Google at risk of fundamentally contradictory damages awards.” The most “efficient and legally sound path forward” is for the court to adopt Google’s proposal,” it said. The parties would continue to move toward trial, and the court would defer or stay “only class notice, the final pretrial conference, and the trial,” while the 9th Circuit decides “the critical issues in the class certification appeal,” it said.