U.S. Antitrust Move Has Google Fighting on Two Fronts

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Saturday, April 28, 2012

U.S. Antitrust Move Has Google Fighting on Two Fronts 

By DAVID STREITFELD and EDWARD WYATT

SAN FRANCISCO — Google may soon be fighting antitrust battles on two fronts.

The European Commission has been looking for two years into whether the search giant abused local competition laws, and it is expected soon to either file formal charges or achieve a significant settlement.

Now the Federal Trade Commission, which began examining Google last year, is starting its own antitrust inquiry. The commission hired a former federal prosecutor this week to lead any potential case.

“The European Commission and the F.T.C. are investigating the same things,” said Keith N. Hylton, a Boston University law professor. But, he added, Google faces a tougher situation in Europe, where courts have a lower threshold for assessing market dominance. Also, antitrust regulators in Europe are much more powerful than they are in the United States. For instance, they do not need a court order to impose sanctions.

The move by the F.T.C. could help embolden the European Union’s competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia,  to send Google a formal charge known as a Statement of Objections, experts said Friday.

“The antitrust authorities in Europe may have grown wary of being seen as being too tough on successful U.S. technology companies like Microsoft and Google,” said Nicolas Petit, a law professor at the University of Liège in Belgium.  “So the appointment of a seasoned litigator to head the investigation in the United States could help Mr. Almunia to move a bit faster with his case.”