A California jury determined Monday that Google’s app store, Google Play, is an illegal monopoly, the New York Post reported.
Epic Games, a video game firm that developed the game Fortnite, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google approximately a year ago, accusing the technology company’s app store of maintaining an unlawful monopoly by using a “bribe and block” scheme to stifle competition.
Last week, presiding United States District Judge James Donato accused Google of intentionally deleting “disturbing evidence” relevant to the case. The judge noted that there was evidence indicating that the tech firm erased internal chat logs and instructed employees to label some documents as “privileged and confidential.”
Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, told one worker to “change the settings of this group [chat] to history off,” according to the lawsuit. Moments later, Pichai then attempted to delete the message instructing the employee to change the chat’s settings, it claimed.
Donato called Google’s actions “deeply troubling” and “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice.”
“I have never seen anything so egregious,” the judge stated.
Jurors were told they “may infer that the deleted Chat messages contained evidence that would have been unfavorable to Google in this case.”
On Monday, the jury unanimously determined that Google Play operates as an illegal monopoly despite the company repeatedly denying any wrongdoing. Jurors claimed that Google’s app store relies on anticompetitive tactics to prevent competition.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote on X Monday, “Victory over Google! After 4 weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January. Thanks for everyone’s support and faith! Free Fortnite!”
“This is an example of the greatness of the American justice system. A billion dollar company challenges a trillion dollar company over complex antitrust practices, and a jury of 9 citizens hears the testimony and renders a verdict,” Sweeney wrote in another post.
Sweeney called out Google executives’ “brazenness” for “violating the law, and then deleting all of the records of violating the law,” CNBC reported.
Epic Games described the legal victory as a “win for all app developers and consumers around the world.”
Google also faces a separate Department of Justice antitrust trial challenging its alleged online search monopoly.
Donato is scheduled to enter the remedy phase of the lawsuit in January to determine how Google’s monopoly can be reined in.
Katherine Van Dyck, with the American Economic Liberties Project, recently told the Post that Donato’s comments could spell more trouble for Google as it contends with several antitrust investigations.
Van Dyck noted that Judge Amit Mehta, slated to oversee the federal lawsuit against the tech company, could weigh Donato’s comments.
“That’s something that the DOJ will, I’m sure, in their post-trial briefing, point out to Judge Mehta again and again. When one judge speaks first, other judges take note of that,” Van Dyck told the Post. “If Judge Mehta looks at what Judge Donato has said about Google’s behavior and decides he agrees with it, that’s going to be a problem for Google. … This is very bad for Google to have this out there in the world.”
Van Dyck called the jury’s decision a “major victory” and applauded Epic Games for pursuing injunctive relief that will likely “fundamentally reshape Google’s monopoly.”
Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, stated that the company plans to appeal the jury’s decision.
“We will continue to defend the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem,” White stated.
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