‘Monopolist’ Google loses landmark antitrust case | Invesloan.com

Good morning.

Today we’re covering:

• US troops injured in a suspected Iran-backed rocket attack

• Mercosur-EU trade deal plans

• New cyber security algorithms for US federal agencies

But first, Google has lost a landmark antitrust case, with a US federal judge ruling that it spent billions of dollars on exclusive deals to maintain an illegal monopoly on search.

US District Judge Amit Mehta, who presided over the four-year-old case in Washington, called Google a “monopolist” in his 268-page decision. The ruling is the biggest win for antitrust enforcers against Big Tech in decades.

It followed a weeks-long trial in which the Department of Justice argued that the search giant paid billions of dollars for anti-competitive deals with wireless carriers, browser developers and device manufacturers — all of which allowed it to cement itself as the default search engine.  

Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google parent Alphabet, said the company would appeal against the ruling. The decision “recognises that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available”, he said.

Here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: The US releases international trade figures.

• Results: Yum Brands, Uber, WK Kellogg, Kenvue, Fox Corp and Instacart report.

• US elections: Kamala Harris is expected to announce her VP pick today ahead of a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

Five more top stories

1. Several US troops were wounded in a suspected rocket attack by Iran-backed militias on a base in Iraq, marking “a dangerous escalation . . . in the region”, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said.

2. Two senior US Federal Reserve officials, Austan Goolsbee and Mary Daly, said the central bank would will aim to ensure price stability as pressure to cut rates mounted. Goolsbee also said that the US economy did not appear to be in recession.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: Investors are exaggerating the risks of a meltdown in the global economy, but their fears could bring on a contraction if central banks fail to contain the fallout, economists have warned.

3. Warner Bros Discovery’s senior management is looking to avoid a break-up of the company, according to people familiar with the matter, as executives race to reverse its plunging share price, which has fallen by almost 70 per cent since it was formed in 2022.

4. The Mercosur group of five South American countries and the EU aim to conclude negotiations for a trade deal that is two decades in the making before the end of the year, despite objections from French President Emmanuel Macron.

5. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is poised to publish three approved cyber security algorithms to shield digital data from the emerging threat of quantum hacking. US federal agencies will be required to use the new cryptography.

The Big Read

As recently as 2017, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol urged the oil industry to produce more to stave off shortages. But in the past three years, he has become increasingly blunt about the world’s need to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy. Birol’s apparent about-face has led some oil executives to privately suggest he is playing climate politics, and that the IEA is now a partisan organisation.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

The Vix index, a measure of the market’s expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 index options, peaked at levels not seen since the pandemic yesterday. The sell-off was broad-based, although Asian and European indices have since shown signs of rebounding this morning.

Take a break from the news

Do our pets make us happier? Conventional wisdom might tell us so, although the research suggests otherwise. Confounding variables and challenges with randomisation make the topic a tough one to study. The FT’s Patti Waldmeir, dog owner of Dumpling and Huahua, examines the evidence.

Additional contributions from Benjamin Wilhelm and Irwin Cruz