U.S. district judge Amit P. Mehta will preside over the Trump administration’s antitrust case against Google, The American Bazaar reports.
According to the article, the U.S. Justice Department alongside 11 states say Google used its popularity as a search engine to destroy competitors and hurt users.
But Google argues that the lawsuit is “deeply flawed”, The American Bazaar reports. “People use Google because they choose to — not because they’re forced [or] can’t find alternatives,” the company responded on Twitter.
Suggesting this case may be challenging, The Wall Street Journal notes antitrust laws hardly ever end up in court. Judges usually don’t have much experience on the topic. For this reason, such cases are especially complicated.
But Mehta has an impressive record. Born in India and raised in Maryland, Mehta graduated from Georgetown University in 1993 and University of Virginia’s law school in 1997. Furthermore, KSAT reports he has worked for a D.C. law firm with “high-profile clients” and also as a public defender attorney. Appointed to the bench by Obama in 2014, Mehta became the first Asian judge in the second highest U.S. court. He has since ruled over a number of iconic cases. According to KSAT, this includes a ruling around Trump’s financial records, and a food-industry case blocking a $3.5 billion Sysco deal for US Foods.
In spite of this, another interesting fact about Mehta is his reputation as a “hip-hop lover”. In 2015, Mehta had presided over a copyright infringement case that “lit up his online fandom”, The American Bazaar reports. Calling himself “no lay person when it comes to hip-hop music and lyrics”, Mehta gained more popularity after this and a 2018 ruling, citing Beyoncé lyrics in an opinion for another copyright case.
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