Google's Epic loss, where a jury found Google guilty on all 11 antitrust claims, may portend its legal fate in two, more significant US antitrust cases in 2024
A trio of antitrust cases on the docket threaten to reshape Google's business and sap its profits.
New York TimesNico Grant
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s exposure was already broader than a single dispute: earlier coverage described a growing set of bills and lawsuits targeting its businesses, with Google potentially facing more pressure than other large tech companies. The Epic verdict adds a jury finding to that wider enforcement backdrop.
Google subsequently sought to overturn the Epic jury verdict, while later coverage tied a Google antitrust loss to consequences for Apple, Amazon, and Meta. That makes this case an early test of how challenges to platform control can spread beyond one product or market.
First-order effects
The all-claims jury loss puts Google’s Play Store rules and exercise of market power under immediate legal pressure, while giving Epic a favorable factual finding to defend on appeal.
Google enters its pending U.S. antitrust cases with a fresh adverse verdict over platform conduct, increasing the practical stakes for its legal strategy and business defenses.
Second-order effects
Developers and rival app-distribution efforts gain a stronger reference point for challenging app-store restrictions, even though the verdict does not by itself determine the outcomes of Google’s other cases.
Apple, Amazon, and Meta face closer scrutiny of comparable gatekeeper practices as enforcement arguments and remedies aimed at Google become more salient.
Third-order effects
If courts continue to accept monopoly theories against major digital platforms, antitrust disputes may shift from conduct findings toward structural or operational remedies, as later coverage of possible remedies after Google’s antitrust loss suggests.
The case belongs to a broader reassessment of platform gatekeeper leverage, in which control of distribution and default access becomes a central competition-policy issue rather than a purely product-design choice.
The trend: Digital-platform antitrust enforcement is increasingly testing whether control over access, distribution, and defaults can be treated as durable gatekeeper power requiring remedies.
“This conduct is a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice. It undercuts due process. It calls into question just resolution of legal disputes. It is antithetical to our system.” And they lost. https://nypost.com/...
Regardless, the Epic jury's decision sends a troubling message if the most open app store should be penalized for efforts to avoid ecosystem fragmentation. 2/
Uh, no. Inapt NYTimes comparison of yesterday's Epic ruling — a jury trial in a commercial disagreement about what developers should pay — to the federal enforcement action & bench trial current before Judge Mehta. These cases will have no correlation. 1/ https://t.co/...
A #GooglePlay juror interviewed by my colleague @xy0o0 found @EpicGames CEO @TimSweeneyEpic to be Sweeney “very honest,” “a down-to-earth person,” and more credible than @Google CEO @sundarpichai #Fortnite #antitrust
Epic Games CEO @TimSweeneyEpic spoke to my colleague @StarFire2258 after his big win against Google in court yesterday: “It was really disconcerting to see the extent of bad faith efforts that were going on in a company of Google's size” “I think the Apple case would be no less i…
But the juror, the only #Android user on the jury, was particularly concerned about Google's secrecy and its deletion of chat history, saying, “I just think they need a refresher on integrity a little bit there.” #appstore #antitrust #fortnite [image]
funny thing about Epic winning against Google but losing against Apple is it's mostly about Googlers writing emails like “Negotiated deal to decrease competition in the market—big bonus this Q!” and “Reminder: always delete incriminating documents subject to retention notices.”
When this case started, Epic didn't even want it to be decided by a jury. Google did. Then two things changed: - Epic saw that the judge in the Apple case got things wrong. - The spoliation-of-evidence (chat deletion) story was going to make Google look bad. 🧵1/2