.jpg)
As Google faces antitrust charges, Apple is battling to protect its multibillion-dollar search engine agreement with Google, and the court isn't making it easy so far. In order to allow the Cupertino business time to get involved in the litigation, Apple filed a petition for an emergency stay last week. However, the court presiding over the case rejected Apple's application [PDF] and would not wait to proceed.
As the court determines what actions to take to stop Google from continuing to breach antitrust law, Apple requested in November that it be given more involvement in the case. Apple appealed the decision after the court ruled no, but the appeals process would take months to complete. Apple requested that the court halt the proceedings while it awaits an appeal, but the judge seems unwilling to do so.
According to the court, Apple has not sufficiently stated why it requires a larger involvement in the action or what additional evidence it has to offer, nor has it shown that it would suffer "certain and great" loss that would warrant a stay. Additionally, the court does not believe Apple has demonstrated that its earlier application for intervention was incorrectly refused. Additionally, the judge believes that taking action now is crucial to stopping Google from committing more antitrust infractions.
This matter has been ongoing for more than four years, and the court noted in its decision rejecting intervention that delaying the evidentiary hearing would result in a months-long delay rather than a weeks-long one.
Furthermore, the court found that Google had violated federal antitrust law by establishing exclusive search distribution agreements with a number of businesses, including Apple, in order to establish and preserve a monopoly in the markets for general text advertising and general search services.
As Apple requests, issuing a stay to maintain the status quo will merely encourage this illegal action, which is against the public interest.
The case centred on Google's search engine agreement with Apple, which led to the company's conviction for antitrust violations last year. The court determined that the contract and other Google tactics violate antitrust law, even though Google pays Apple billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine for Safari.
Apple does not want Google to get into search contracts with Apple and other corporations, therefore the U.S. government has petitioned the court to stop that from happening. If Google is prohibited from carrying out the search engine agreement, Apple will lose more than $20 billion a year, and it would still be required to provide consumers with the choice to utilise Google Search.
Google may also have to sell the Chrome browser or separate Android from Google Play Store and Google Search, among other more drastic measures. Apple wants to intervene because it believes Google will put protecting Chrome and its other products ahead of its search agreement with Apple.
"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," Apple stated in its request for a stay.
In order to speed its appeal of the earlier judgement that prevented it from continuing to participate in the Google litigation, Apple now intends to file a petition. If Apple can accelerate the case, the appeals process could have time to conclude before the remedies phase of the antitrust action against Google, which is scheduled to start in April.
