Meet the Indian-American judge Amit Mehta, who ruled that Google has 'illegal monopoly'

A US judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.

The highly anticipated seismic decision, which could shake up the internet landscape, was issued by Indian-origin US District Judge Amit Mehta.

It comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the US Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.

Mehta’s ruling was unequivocal.

“Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”

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Here’s all we know about him.

Who is District Court Judge Amit Mehta?

Born in Gujarat’s Patan in 1971, Amit Mehta moved to the United States with his parents at the age of one, as per Jagran Josh.

Raised in Maryland, he earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Georgetown University in 1993 and graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997.

Mehta started his legal journey at the San Francisco office of Latham and Watkins LLP in the same year.

According to NDTV, he also clerked for the Honourable Susan P Graber of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

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In 1999, Mehta joined Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington, DC and then the District of Columbia Public Defender Service as a staff attorney from 2002 to 2007.

He returned to Zuckerman Spaeder in 2007, where he focused on white-collar criminal defence, complex business disputes, and appellate advocacy.

At the time, Mehta also served on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project and co-chaired the District of Columbia Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee, as per The Times of India.

He was also active in other legal groups, serving as the director of a non-profit organisation, Facilitating Leadership in Youth, which was dedicated to after-school activities and mentoring at-risk youth.

On December 2, 2014, he was appointed to the US District Court for the District of Columbia, making him a federal judge. He was appointed by former US President Barack Obama and is the first Asian-Pacific American to be sworn into the District Court, as per Hindustan Times.

Mehta has represented high-profile clients, including former US Representative Tom Feeney and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former president of the IMF, helping him defeat criminal assault charges in a New York court.

As a judge, Mehta has made significant rulings, including cases related to the January 6 Capitol riots.

He denied former President Donald Trump’s attempt to dismiss civil lawsuits holding him accountable for inciting the riot. Mehta wrote in his ruling, “To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent, and the court believes that its decision is consistent with the purposes behind such immunity.”

What did he say in the latest judgement?

Amit Mehta ruled on Monday, August 5, that Google violated antitrust law after a massive trial involving the tech giant.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling. He said Google’s dominance in the search market is evidence of its monopoly.

Google “enjoys an 89.2 per cent share of the market for general search services, which increases to 94.9 per cent on mobile devices,” the ruling said.

According to The Associated Press, Mehta’s ruling focused on the billions of dollars Google spends every year to install its search engine as the default option on new cellphones and tech gadgets. In 2021 alone, Google spent more than $26 billion to lock in those default agreements, Mehta said in his ruling.

It represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stems from users’ choices, rather than anticompetitive practices.

Google’s search engine processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study released by the investment firm BOND.

In response to the unfavourable ruling, Google intends to file an appeal.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said the company intends to appeal Mehta’s findings.

“This decision recognises that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said.

The company remains steadfast in its belief that its success is a result of providing superior services to its users.

With inputs from agencies