Will Google dodge ad business break up?

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The Daily Docket

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

By Caitlin Tremblay

Good morning. Google will make its final plea to avoid the breakup of its ad tech business. Plus, John Bolton will make his first court appearance since being charged with mishandling classified information; Harvard Law released a digitized Nuremberg Trials archive; and we have the latest on litigation reform measures in Congress. I hope you and this 101-year-old barista have nice weekends. See you Monday!

Google aims to dodge ad business breakup as antitrust trial wraps

REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Today, Google will make its final plea to avoid the breakup of its ad tech business. Here's what to know:

The closing arguments before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria mark the end of evidentiary hearings in Google's yearslong battle with the DOJ over its dominance in online advertising and search.
In April, Brinkema ruled that Google holds two illegal ad tech monopolies, and is now considering what the company must do to restore competition. Read her April ruling here.
The DOJ and a coalition of states have asked the judge to make Google sell its ad exchange where online publishers pay Google a 20% fee to sell ads in auctions that happen instantly when users load websites.
Google tried to show that a breakup would be technically difficult, resulting in a long and painful transition that would hurt customers. The company has asked Brinkema to take the same cautious approach as U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in D.C. who recently rejected most of the DOJ's proposals in a separate case over Google's monopoly in online search. Read more about that case here.
Next, the fight will shift to appeals courts, a process that could take years.
Jody Godoy has more on today's closings here.

Coming up today

President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton will appear in court before U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland. It is Bolton's first court appearance since he was charged earlier this year with unlawfully retaining classified information he allegedly emailed to family members in preparation for his upcoming memoir. He has pleaded not guilty.
U.S. prosecutors are set to respond to claims from New York Attorney General Letitia James that a mortgage-related criminal case against her is a vindictive prosecution by the Trump administration.
Today, Manhattan federal prosecutors face a filing deadline to respond to alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione's motions to dismiss his murder case and bar the government from seeking the death penalty.
The 9th Circuit will hear an appeal challenging the lower court's dismissal of a consumer class action alleging that Campbell Soup Company deceptively labels and advertises its Kettle Brand Air Fried potato chips as being air fried when they are really cooked in oil.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

More top news

Industry insight

GOP-backed litigation funding reform legislation is facing fresh opposition from both Democratic lawmakers and some influential conservative groups. Read more in this week's Billable Hours.
Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, one of the largest law firms to face scrutiny over its lawyers' use of AI, avoided sanctions, but a federal bankruptcy judge reprimanded its attorney for submitting court filings with inaccurate and non-existent AI-generated citations.
Elon Musk's social media platform X ended its lawsuit against Wachtell seeking to recover most of a $90 million legal fee the firm received for beating Musk's bid to walk away from his multibillion-dollar purchase of the company. Read the filing.
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced President Trump's four judicial and U.S. attorney nominees in Mississippi whose nominations had been held up for months by a lone member of the president's own party, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Read more here.
Blackstone invested $50 million in Norm Ai, a legal and compliance technology startup that also said it is launching an independent law firm that will offer "AI-native legal services." Read more here.
Just one move this morning: Kati Orso moved to Husch Blackwell's real estate group from Jackson Walker.
New partners: Foley Hoag promoted nine to partner … Holland & Hart elected 14 new partners.

"This collection stands as an answer to one of history's most critical questions: How can law rise to meet moments of international crisis?"

—Amanda Watson, Harvard Law's assistant dean for library and information services, commenting on the public release of over 750,000 digitized pages from the Nuremberg Trials archive, now accessible online in a searchable format. Find out more here.

In the courts

A transgender civilian employee of the Illinois National Guard filed a proposed class action against the Trump administration challenging its policy barring trans and intersex federal employees from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. Read the complaint here.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in D.C. temporarily halted President Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to the district. Read the preliminary injunction here.
The New Jersey Supreme Court became the first court in the country to prohibit prosecutors from using expert testimony on "shaken baby syndrome," finding that the diagnosis is scientifically unreliable. Read the opinion here.
Three Republican-led states have moved to broaden their lawsuit seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, aiming to block the FDA's recent approval of a new generic version. Read the filing.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi, accusing the drugmakers of failing to disclose that Plavix, which is used to prevent blood clots, does not work effectively for many patients. Read more here.
Google urged Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco to reject demands that it surrender more than $2.3 billion in profit and stop certain ad-related data practices, calling the requests in a long-running privacy case "wildly disproportionate" and unnecessary. Read the filing.

Column: Tesla hits the brakes as lawyers seek to share Autopilot information with each other

Fresh off a $243 million win against Tesla before a Miami jury, plaintiffs lawyer Brett Schreiber faced off against the automaker at a hearing earlier this week in San Francisco federal court in another wrongful-death lawsuit. The first hot spot: discovery. Jenna Greene looks at Schreiber's push to share confidential Tesla materials with other plaintiffs' attorneys litigating similar self-driving tech cases against the company. Read more in On the Case.

Attorney Analysis

Troutman Pepper Locke's Clay Friedman, Ashley Taylor and Chris Carlson examine how 2026 state attorney general elections are set to significantly influence legal and policy outcomes across the country. Read today's Attorney Analysis.

Westlaw Today is seeking contributed articles from legal professionals for a special series on constitutional law. To express interest, please send a brief description to Elaine Song, Managing Editor, Westlaw Today Contributions, at elaine.song@thomsonreuters.com.

Additional writing by Shruthi Krishnamurthy.

Contact

Caitlin Tremblay

caitlin.tremblay@thomsonreuters.com

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