• by Wendy Davis , January 9, 2025

The Department of Justice is urging a federal judge to reject Apple's bid to intervene in a battle over the proposal that Google end its long-standing search and revenue-sharing partnership with Apple.

“With its lucrative exclusionary agreement in peril, Apple now files an eleventh-hour effort to intervene in this litigation,” the Justice Department writes in papers filed Wednesday.

“Apple -- one of the largest and most sophisticated companies in the world, represented by equally sophisticated counsel -- knew the entire time that a major focus of this case was the companies’ agreement,” the government added.

The dispute comes in a lawsuit dating to 2020, when the federal government and a coalition of states alleged that Google monopolized search.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C. found that Google violated antitrust law by arranging to serve as the default search engine on browsers operated by Apple and Mozilla, as well as on Android devices.

Mehta is expected to soon hold a trial over potential remedies. The federal government has proposed numerous terms -- including that Google end its revenue-sharing partnership with Apple.

That deal involves Google serving as the default search engine for Safari, for which Google pays Apple around 36% of search revenue for queries originating on Safari. The agreement resulted in an estimated $20 billion payment from Google to Apple in 2022.

Late last year, Apple sought to intervene in the case, arguing that it has a stake in the outcome.

Apple wrote that the Justice Department's proposal “threatens to undercut Apple’s property interest in its existing contract with Google and in its ability to enter into future contracts with Google across a host of domains, including general search, AI, and other related areas.”

But the Justice Department says Apple waited too long to make the request.

“Apple’s counsel attended every deposition of its employees and every day of the trial. At no time throughout this years-long litigation and prior to filing its motion to intervene on December 23, 2024, did Apple ever suggest that Google ... did not adequately represent Apple’s interests,” the government argues.

The Justice Department adds that Google's interests in the revenue-sharing agreement are aligned with Apple's.

“Apple and Google clearly share the ultimate objective of continuing the [agreement] that has been so profitable for both companies,” the government argues.

Apple is expected to respond by January 15.