On May 22, 2026, Google asked the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn the most significant US antitrust ruling against a tech company since Microsoft in 2001. The brief runs 111 pages. The goal is simple: not to reduce the penalty, but to erase the finding.
What Judge Mehta Established#
In August 2024, Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled in United States v. Google LLC (filed by the DOJ in 2020): Google violates § 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act through illegal monopoly maintenance in two markets — general search services and search text advertising.
The factual record is concrete:
- ~90% of US desktop search queries run through Google.
- ~95% of smartphone search queries.
- Google pays several billion dollars annually to Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and other distribution partners to be set as the default search engine. The Apple deal alone: approximately $20 billion USD per year — 36% of Safari’s search revenue, disclosed in Mehta’s liability findings during the 2023 trial.
- These contracts, Mehta found, blocked a substantial share of the market from competitors, deprived them of the user data necessary for scaling, and systematically reduced their investment incentives.
Mehta’s key sentence: »Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.«
In doing so, Mehta explicitly examined and rejected Google’s strongest counterargument — that »harm to competitors« is different from »harm to the competitive process«. His finding: Google’s default regime does not harm individual competitors, but the scaling mechanism of the market itself. Without access to distribution channels, rivals cannot collect data. Without data, they cannot train their algorithms. Without trained algorithms, they remain structurally inferior — not because their engineers are worse, but because Google controls the data flywheel exclusively. That is harm to the competitive process, not harm to a competitor.
What the Court Ordered — and What It Did Not#
The liability ruling came in August 2024. The remedies ruling followed in two steps: September 2025 and, as a Final Order, December 5, 2025 (published on CourtListener/PACER).
The DOJ had originally demanded the forced sale of Chrome, an option to force the sale of Android, and a complete ban on all default-placement payments. Mehta rejected that.
What was actually ordered:
- No exclusive default contracts. Google may still pay for default status, but not lock it in through exclusivity.
- Apple deal: maximum 12-month contract terms. Competitors get a real annual opportunity to outbid Apple’s arrangement — instead of being locked out long-term as before.
- Data sharing with qualified competitors: portions of the search index, user interaction data, syndication services. Intended recipients explicitly include AI players — OpenAI, Perplexity, and comparable search challengers.
- Technical Committee for implementation and enforcement oversight.
- Duration of the remedy: 6 years.
The DOJ filed a formal cross-appeal with the DC Circuit in February 2026: Chrome divestiture is necessary, the behavioral remedies too weak to guarantee genuine competition.
Google’s Attack on the Finding Itself#
On May 22, 2026, Google did not argue against the severity of the remedies — Google challenged the entire liability decision. That is the central point.
Google’s strongest legal-doctrinal argument: Mehta confused »harm to competitors« with »harm to the competitive process« — a distinction established since Brown Shoe Co. v. United States (1962), Brooke Group Ltd. (1993), and Verizon v. Trinko (2004). Only the latter is actionable under § 2 Sherman Act.
The argument is precisely formulated. It is also wrong, as shown above: Mehta applied exactly this doctrine to the data-scaling problem and answered it, not ignored it. The DC Circuit must decide whether to weigh Mehta’s factual assessment differently on this point. Reversal would be revision, not correction of an error.
Google’s second argument: Apple chose Google as its default because it offers the best search quality and best monetization. Google’s appeal brief cites Apple’s own assessment: the choice was a »no brainer«, Bing being »terrible« at advertising monetization.
That is the weakest of the arguments — and the most revealing.
If Apple genuinely chooses freely and Google simply has the best product, why does Google pay $20 billion annually for a contract that could theoretically be renegotiated every year? The answer that the 111-page brief does not provide on any of its 111 pages: because Google knows that open competition without the default advantage would erode its market share. The $20 billion argument answers itself.
The Political Lever: Who Sits on the DC Circuit — and What Happened to the DOJ#
The DC Circuit has eleven active judges. Three are Trump first-term nominations (2017–2020): Neomi Rao, Gregory Katsas, Justin Walker — all with a documented profile of reading agency discretion and regulatory reach narrowly. Two seats were filled under Biden. Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan is an Obama nomination. Which three-judge panel is assigned the Google appeal is not randomly irrelevant.
The second factor is the DOJ itself. The Justice Department filed the cross-appeal in February 2026 — the same month antitrust chief Gail Slater was forced out. Since then, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division has experienced what state attorneys general describe as a mass exodus of career lawyers and enforcement priorities that have »dramatically shifted.« The fact that the DOJ has formally maintained the cross-appeal does not mean it is being pursued with the same energy as under the previous leadership. If the DOJ withdraws or dilutes the cross-appeal during the proceedings, the sharpest remedy demand — Chrome divestiture — disappears without any appellate court ruling.
That is the open flank of the entire construction: the liability ruling may survive, while the remedy is hollowed out through political withdrawal.
The Precedent Behind the Precedent#
The Google case is the direct continuation of United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) — the last case in which the DC Circuit convicted a tech monopolist.
In 2001, the DC Circuit confirmed the liability findings against Microsoft but overturned the breakup order as disproportionate. The pattern: violation yes, radical structural measure no. Mehta’s remedy follows exactly this pattern — liability confirmed, Chrome sale rejected. That is not coincidental: Mehta knows Microsoft 2001. He built the ruling to withstand a Microsoft-pattern review.
If the DC Circuit now overturns the liability, it revises a 25-year-old precedent of its own making and invalidates the foundational principle on which the DOJ built its parallel cases against Amazon, Apple, and Meta — all using similar argumentative lines: default contracts, platform control, market exclusion as § 2 violations.
The Microsoft pattern makes the mixed outcome the most likely path: the DC Circuit of 2001 confirmed liability and trimmed the remedy. A court that wants to overturn its own 25-year precedent must clear a high explanatory threshold. Trimming the data-sharing order — which methodologically does extend beyond the traditional remedy repertoire — is doctrinally easier.
Second Case — Different Court#
There is no total victory for Google. Running parallel to the Mehta case is a second Google antitrust proceeding: United States v. Google LLC (2023) before Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia.
On April 17, 2025, Brinkema found: Google monopolizes two AdTech markets (Publisher Ad Server and Open-Web Display Ad Exchange) and ties them in violation of § 1 Sherman Act (Simpson Thacher analysis). The DOJ is seeking the forced sale of AdX. The remedy phase is ongoing.
The Brinkema ruling stands independently — and on appeal would go to the Fourth Circuit (Richmond), not the DC Circuit. Even if Google wins in Washington: it loses in Virginia. Two independent Sherman Act convictions from two different appellate jurisdictions are structurally different from one.
What Is at Stake#
Three scenarios:
Google wins (liability overturned): Mehta’s remedy order falls completely. Apple deal intact in full. Data-sharing access for OpenAI, Perplexity and other AI search challengers eliminated. Default-placement model for platforms legitimized in US antitrust. DOJ cases against Amazon, Apple, Meta lose their strongest precedent. For the European Commission: no US precedential backing for ongoing DMA proceedings against Google.
Google loses (liability confirmed, remedy modified): Microsoft pattern repeats. Data sharing enters into force, possibly trimmed. 12-month Apple deal cap remains. If DOJ cross-appeal holds: Chrome divestiture. Microsoft doctrine applies to the platform economy of the 21st century.
Mixed outcome (most likely path, following the Microsoft pattern): Liability confirmed, data-sharing order trimmed or modified as remedial overreach. No Chrome sale. 12-month Apple cap in adjusted form. The verdict stands; its teeth are blunted.
The outcome has concrete implications for European readers. The European Commission published preliminary findings in March 2025 that Alphabet may be violating Article 6(5) of the Digital Markets Act in Google Search — self-preferencing its own services over competitors in search results (EU Commission, March 2025). The DMA proceeding is legally independent of the DC Circuit’s outcome. But what a US appellate court decides on the competition-restricting effects of default contracts and platform power shapes expectations — both at the Commission and in industry — about what is enforceable and what is not.
What the DC Circuit decides over the next one to two years will determine whether »Big Tech antitrust« is a practice or an episode.
Sources: United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001); Judge Mehta Liability Opinion August 2024 (Goodwin Law, White & Case); Mehta Remedy Final Order 05.12.2025 (DLA Piper, CourtListener); DOJ Proposed Final Judgment November 2024; DOJ Cross-Appeal February 2026; Reuters »Google appeals US court ruling on search monopoly« 22.05.2026; Courthouse News on DC Circuit Filing 22.05.2026; United States v. Google LLC (AdTech) Judge Brinkema April 2025 (Simpson Thacher); EU Commission DMA proceedings Alphabet/Google Search (March 2025); Politico »The Next Lina Khan Is Your State AG« 23.05.2026 on Slater departure and DOJ antitrust exodus.
