In the matter of United States v. Google LLC, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in the search market. The Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, argued that Google's payments of approximately $26.3 billion to Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla to secure default search placement constituted anticompetitive conduct. Google's lead counsel, John Schmidtlein of Williams & Connolly LLP, indicated the company would appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
