Google monopoly ruling could help Apple defense in antitrust case
Google's big loss in monopoly case could have silver lining for Apple
US judge rules Google not required to accommodate rivals, aiding Apple's defense
Apple argues limiting third-party access to its tech is not anti-competitive behavior
By Jody Godoy
Aug 6 (Reuters) -Apple AAPL.O could be the winner after Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google lost its fight with the U.S. antitrust enforcers earlier this week, with a ruling that supports the iPhone maker's defense in its own antitrust court battle with U.S. prosecutors, legal experts said.
A federal judge mostly sided with state and federal antitrust enforcers in the blockbuster case on Monday that ruled Google's search business was an illegal monopoly, but threw out a claim by several U.S. states that one of Google's ad tools was designed to give the company an advantage over Microsoft's MSFT.O Bing.
That piece could help Apple's defense in its own anti-monopoly case, experts said.
The ruling underscored Supreme Court precedent that companies almost never have a "duty to deal" with their rivals, said Herbert Hovenkamp, who teaches antitrust at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
"Any case, including Apple, in which a duty to deal is a major portion, is going to get a close look," he said.
The states had claimed Google thwarted competition by failing to offer key features for rivals' ads through Search Ads 360, a tool for managing marketing campaigns across multiple search engines.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed with Google that it was not required to spur competition by accommodating its rival.
"Their claim requires grappling with a host of questions that the court is ill-equipped to handle," the judge said.
That part of the ruling is good for defendants, said William Kovacic, a professor at George Washington University Law School and former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
"It also is a reminder that the case is hardly finished," he said, adding that the case and appeals could take years.
To be sure, Apple could ultimately lose billions of dollars because of the Google case if the judge bans the search juggernaut from paying the iPhone maker and others to be the default search engine on their devices.
Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.
But the Google ruling could give Apple a boost in its case where the Justice Department says it hampered the development of third-party apps and devices.
The company last week asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that putting reasonable limitations on third-party developers' access to its technology did not amount to anti-competitive behavior, and that forcing it to share technology with competitors would chill innovation.
The judge in Apple's case need not follow Mehta's ruling, though Apple may try to use it to persuade him.
The Justice Department will have to show Apple's interactions with developers were more like Google's payments to device makers, Hovenkamp said.
"In order to win, the government is going to have to point to some kind of agreement, because then the standard becomes more aggressive," he said.
BREAKINGVIEWS-Google is a monopoly, long live Google https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/google-is-monopoly-long-live-google-2024-08-06/
In landmark Google ruling, a warning to companies about preserving evidence https://www.reuters.com/technology/landmark-google-ruling-warning-companies-about-preserving-evidence-2024-08-06/
FACTBOX-US judge rules Google has illegal monopoly on search as Big Tech scrutiny intensifies nL4N3JS281
Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
