In the landmark U.S. antitrust case against Google, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the witness stand and said that Google had used unfair tactics to hobble Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that this is a non-jury trial, and the proceedings are taking place in a packed courtroom in Washington, D.C. Nadella confirmed the Justice Department’s theory that Google gained its dominance in search through their agreement with Apple.
This is the third week of the trial, and the Justice Department called Satya Nadella as a witness. The trial will likely last about ten weeks. Nadella was only questioned for about an hour.
It is said that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta has the power to break up Google or order other business changes. Some had expressed surprise that Judge Mehta jumped in with cross-examination questions and comments.
Advocacy groups are highly critical of Judge Mehta
Last week, advocacy groups claimed that Judge Mehta allowed Apple executives to testify almost entirely behind closed doors. Apple executives claimed their testimonies involved information too sensitive to be spoken in open court.
The lead trial counsel for Google, John Schmidtlein, cross-examined Nadella and made comments about Microsoft’s many missteps in internet search, saying that Google had the far superior search engines that garnered the highest amount of search in the first place and had nothing to do with their agreement with Apple.
The U.S. government argues that Google used distribution agreements with Apple and other phone companies to limit or stop competition.
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