Law360 (October 20, 2026, 5:16 PM EDT) -- Google took one final swing Monday at upending a D.C. federal judge's rulings faulting it for monopolizing online search and forcing it to prop up search engine rivals with data and syndicated results, telling the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Department of Justice's case targets earned market dominance.

In its final principal brief ahead of oral arguments, which haven't been scheduled yet, Google maintained that the distribution contracts making its search engine the default option on Apple's and Mozilla's devices and browsers never edged out rivals as the trial court found, because its search engine was chosen willingly and because distribution partners "remained free to distribute and promote rival search engines, and they did so," just not as the out-of-the-box option.

"And even accepting the court's mistaken premise that the agreements were exclusive deals, they reflect no exclusionary conduct on Google's part. After all, it was Apple and Mozilla — not Google — that chose for their own sound business reasons to design web browsers with a single out-of-the-box default search engine," the company said. "Any supposed 'exclusivity' was thus entirely attributable to their independent choices. Nothing in the antitrust laws justifies imposing liability on Google for simply making an offer that best matched their specifications."

Google is appealing both a D.C. federal judge's decision holding it liable for monopolizing online search and his remedies order forcing the company to prop up search engine rivals with data and syndicated search results. The Justice Department and its state attorneys general partners are contesting the judge's refusal of their most sweeping remedies proposals, namely the rejection of an outright ban blocking Google from paying Apple, Samsung, Mozilla and others to preload its search engine on their devices and browsers.

Both sides have jointly sought oral arguments as soon as possible, potentially as early as Dec. 9.

With arguments likely looming, Google continued Monday to assail U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta's 2024 decision finding Google had locked in so much of the search distribution market that it left rival search engines like DuckDuckGo and Microsoft Corp.'s Bing hopelessly behind. According to Judge Mehta, it did so by paying search distribution partners billions of dollars a year in search advertising revenue to be made the default on their browsers and devices. But in a case alleging only illegal "monopoly maintenance" and not the illegal acquisition of a monopoly, Google leaned Monday on Judge Mehta's assertions that its initial dominance was earned.

"Apple and Mozilla sensibly chose Google because it gave their users the best experience and they stood to earn the most by sharing in Google's advertising revenues. That is what competition on the merits looks like," it said.

Under the D.C. Circuit's landmark Microsoft ruling, Google said that all that should matter is the competitive process, with the company arguing it never put a thumb on those scales.

"It did not impede its rivals' opportunity to make — or Apple's and Mozilla's ability to choose — a better offer. Indeed, there is no finding — or even any evidence — that Google's customers would have chosen a rival, even in the absence of the challenged agreements," Google said. "Google just prevailed in the marketplace fair and square."

In a case that rested heavily on the power of inertia in default options, Google argued that users who found its search engine as their default continued to use it "because they overwhelmingly prefer Google on the merits, as the district court's own findings confirm."

Google further maintained that it can't properly be considered a monopolist because it says Judge Mehta wrongly excluded vertical search engines like Yelp and Expedia from the market, even though they allow users to run the same commercial, or monetized, queries.

In assailing Judge Mehta's 2025 remedies decision, Google complained that the fix isn't tailored to the findings of wrongdoing.

"The district court made none of the findings necessary to justify the extraordinary step of ordering Google to boost its competitors through data-transfer and syndication," the company said. "There were no findings — none, at any stage — about how much (if any) of Google's market position was attributable to Google's supposedly unlawful exclusive deals as opposed to its lawful advantages, business foresight, superior product, and superior monetization."

Google also singled out Judge Mehta's decision to include not just search engine rivals as recipients but also artificial intelligence chatbots, technology that didn't even exist in the time period targeted, meaning, Google said, that they couldn't have been harmed by its conduct. It also argued that offerings like ChatGPT "are already succeeding as wildly as any technology in human history without any need to free-ride on Google's success."

The DOJ and Google declined to comment Tuesday.

The federal government is represented by Stanley E. Woodward Jr., Stephanie A. Greco, Ethan S. Hoffman, Travis R. Chapman, Grant M. Fergusson, Karl E. Herrmann, Ryan T. Karr, Claire M. Maddox, Michael G. McLellan, Daniel E. Haar, Nickolai G. Levin, Patrick M. Kuhlmann and Matthew A. Waring of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division.

The states are represented by their respective attorneys general.

Google is represented by Donald B. Verrilli Jr., Helen E. White, Benjamin J. Horwich, Ginger D. Anders, Daniel J. Kane and Justin P. Raphael of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, John E. Schmidtlein and Graham W. Safty of Williams & Connolly LLP, Michael S. Sommer and Franklin M. Rubinstein of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, and Mark S. Popofsky and Matthew L. McGinnis of Ropes & Gray LLP.

The district court case is U.S. et al. v. Google LLC, case number 1:20-cv-03010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The appellate cases are U.S. et al. v. Google LLC, case numbers 26-5023, 26-5047 and 26-5049, all in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

--Additional reporting by Aneeta Mathur-Ashton, Hailey Konnath and Matthew Perlman. Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.

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