Google Request to Move State Antitrust Lawsuit Denied by Judge

David McLaughlin, Bloomberg News

(EDITORS NOTE: Multiple exposures were combined in camera to produce this image.) The Google logo on the company's homepage, arranged on a desktop computer in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Google threatened to disable its search engine in Australia if it’s forced to pay local publishers for news, a dramatic escalation of a months-long standoff with the government. Photographer: David Gray/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.’s Google failed to have a monopoly lawsuit filed against the company by Texas and other states moved to California, where the company is based.

U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan in Plano, Texas, on Thursday denied Google’s request to transfer the case, according to a court filing.

The judge said Google had failed to establish that California is a more convenient venue and said that moving it could cause unnecessary delay by combining it with pending class-action lawsuits against the company.

The Texas lawsuit, filed by 14 states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is one three government cases accusing the company of abusing monopoly power. The U.S. Justice Department and a group of states are targeting Google’s search business, while the Texas complaint focuses on digital advertising.

Google had argued that the Texas case mirrors lawsuits filed against it in California, potentially leading to conflicting court decisions. It also said California is a more convenient venue for witnesses who might testify at trial.

The states countered that the case should remain in Texas because there are publishers, advertisers and consumers in the state affected by Google’s advertising business. The Texas court also has a track record of moving cases to trial more quickly than the federal court in San Francisco, they said.

The case is State of Texas v. Google, 20-cv-00957, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Sherman)