• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A federal appellate court on Wednesday rejected California Crane School's request for a new hearing over claims that Apple and Google conspired to avoid competing in paid search.

The move leaves in place U.S. District Court Judge P. Casey Pitts's decision dismissing California Crane's suit against Apple, and sending claims against Google to arbitration because its contract with advertisers requires arbitration of disputes.

Absent intervention by the Supreme Court, Wednesday's decision brings an end to a federal lawsuit dating to 2021, when California Crane, which trains crane operators, alleged that Google's longstanding arrangement to serve as the default search engine for Apple's Safari browser was part of a scheme to avoid competition. The school contended that the companies' deal resulted in higher prices for search ads.

Pitts said in a March 2024 ruling that California Crane's allegations -- even if proven true -- wouldn't show that Google and Apple were engaged in an illegal conspiracy.

After the ruling came out, California Crane asked Pitts to reconsider in light of evidence that emerged during the government's antitrust trial against Google in federal court in Washington, D.C. In that matter, the Department of Justice and a coalition of states claimed Google wrongly monopolized search due to its search distribution deals, including the partnership with Apple.

Pitts rejected California Crane's argument, noting that the evidence in the government's case against Google wouldn't have changed his ruling. (Shortly after Pitts issued that decision, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C. found that Google monopolized search as a result of its distribution deals with Apple and other companies.)

California Crane then appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Pitts' ruling.

"Crane asserts that the public vertical agreement that sets Google as the default search engine on Apple’s browser is evidence of a secret horizontal conspiracy involving Apple's promise not to compete with Google in the search business. But Crane failed to advance well-pleaded allegations suggesting direct evidence of any such secret agreement," Circuit Judges Morgan Christen, Daniel Bress and Lawrence VanDyke wrote in an unsigned opinion.

They added that the public agreement between Google and Apple doesn't include any provisions that would have prevented Apple from attempting to develop its own search engine.

Late last month, California Crane sought a new hearing in front of a majority of 9th Circuit judges. The company argued in its petition that the panel decision conflicted with Mehta's findings in the Justice Department's antitrust case.

The 9th Circuit rejected that request Wednesday, writing that none of the circuit's judges requested a vote on the petition for a new hearing.