Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.
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A federal judge narrowed the case that states and the Department of Justice can make in the antitrust trial against Google beginning in September, according to a newly-released decision.
It’s a significant win for Google, though it will still need to face other claims brought by the enforcers when the trial begins September 12.
D.C. District Court Judge Amit Mehta granted, in part, Google’s motion for summary judgment in the cases brought by the Department of Justice and a coalition of state attorneys general. The cases both alleged that Google illegally maintained a monopoly by cutting off rivals from search distribution channels.
While the judge mostly allowed that shared argument from the enforcers to move forward, he notably threw out the states’ claim that Google unfairly hurt search rivals like Yelp and Tripadvisor through the design of search results pages that lowered their visibility.
Mehta also narrowed the DOJ’s case to remove arguments over certain agreements Google made for its Android mobile operating system, Google Assistant and internet of things devices. He also removed arguments pertaining to how Google managed its Android Open Source Project. After Google filed the motion on summary judgement against those portions of the suit, the DOJ chose not to offer an opposition on those particular points, the filing notes.
Mehta denied Google’s motion for summary judgement on both enforcers’ claims that Google used exclusive dealing arrangements to violate anti-monopoly law, writing, “There remain genuine disputes of material fact that warrant a trial.”
As for the states’ claims about Google’s alleged anticompetitive behavior around its search ad tool SA360, Mehta wrote that there also remains a “genuine dispute of material fact with regard to the anticompetitive effect of Google’s disparate development of SA360’s ad-buying features,” meaning that claim is allowed to move forward.
The DOJ and a bipartisan group of AGs from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020. Though they are separate complaints, they were combined for pretrial purposes, such as discovery of evidence.
The DOJ’s complaint focused on the ways Google allegedly used exclusionary contracts to tie up important channels to distribute search engines. In doing so, the agency alleged, Google maintained its monopoly power by denying rivals the chance to reach a similar scale and challenge its dominance.
The coalition of states made similar arguments but added additional points that aimed to address core arguments that Google’s longtime opponents have made against the tech giant.
In addition to the allegedly exclusionary contracts for search distribution, the states alleged that Google also violated antitrust law through its product to buy search ads and the way it designed its search results pages.
The states will still be allowed to bring claims that Google used its search ad product to disadvantage advertisers by not allowing them interoperate between its own tools and competitors’ to buy general search ads. But they will no longer be able to bring the claim that Google harmed competition by designing its search results to push down search engine competitors’ results, the judge decided.
That part of the complaint was most similar to the focus of a Federal Trade Commission investigation that closed a decade ago. The FTC decided to close the investigation without charges after probing whether the company gave its own content on its search results page an unfair advantage at rivals’ expense. But The Wall Street Journal later revealed that FTC staff had recommended filing suit against Google in connection to the search bias allegations, concluding that “conduct has resulted—and will result—in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets.”
The judge’s decision to throw out the states’ claims of search result bias is a blow to companies like Yelp, which have fought for more than a decade to have regulators around the world challenge the webpage design of Google’s search results.
“We appreciate the Court’s careful consideration and decision to dismiss claims regarding the design of Google Search,” Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, said in a statement. “Our engineers build Search to provide the best results and help you quickly find what you’re looking for. People have more ways than ever to access information, and they choose to use Google because it’s helpful. We look forward to showing at trial that promoting and distributing our services is both legal and pro-competitive.”
“I am pleased that the multistate attorneys general lawsuit challenging Google’s monopoly in the search engine market and search advertising will proceed to trial in September,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “We will continue to evaluate how to best press forward and establish Google’s pattern of illegal conduct that harms consumers and competition.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.
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23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe’s outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company’s stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million.
The offer comes after a turbulent year for 23andMe, with the stock losing more than 80% of its value in 2024. In January, the company announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company or its assets, a restructuring or a business combination.
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23andMe has a special committee of independent directors in place to evaluate potential paths forward. The company appointed three new independent directors to its board in October after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned the prior month. The special committee has to approve Wojcicki and New Mountain’s proposal.
“We believe that our Proposal provides compelling value and immediate liquidity to the Company’s public stockholders,” Wojcicki and Matthew Holt, managing director and president of private equity at New Mountain, wrote in a letter to the special committee on Thursday.
Wojcicki previously submitted a proposal to take the company private for 40 cents per share in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because the members said it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price at the time.
Wojcicki and New Mountain are willing to provide secured debt financing to fund 23andMe’s operations through the transaction’s closing, the filing said. New Mountain is based in New York and has $55 billion of assets under management, according to its website.
Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.
Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies such as Hims & Hers have been prescribing compounded semaglutide as an alternative for patients who are navigating volatile supply hurdles and insurance obstacles.
Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products.
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide to patients in May, and it owns compounding pharmacies that produce the medications.
Compounded medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for less than $200 per month, while Ozempic and Wegovy both cost around $1,000 per month without insurance.
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The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of facility, in order to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”
“Now that the FDA has determined the drug shortage for semaglutide has been resolved, we will continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum posted Friday on X. “We’re also closely monitoring potential future shortages, as Novo Nordisk stated two weeks ago that it would continue to have ‘capacity limitations’ and ‘expected continued periodic supply constraints and related drug shortage notifications.'”
Him & Hers’ weight loss offerings have been a massive hit with investors. Shares of the company climbed more than 200% last year, and the stock is already up more than 100% this year despite Friday’s move.
Even before it added compounded GLP-1s to its portfolio, the company said in its 2023 fourth-quarter earnings call that it expects its weight loss program to bring in more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.
Despite the turbulent regulatory landscape, Hims & Hers has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, the company announced it has acquired a U.S.-based peptide facility that will “further verticalize the company’s long-term ability to deliver personalized medications.” Hims & Hers will explore advances across metabolic optimization, recovery science, biological resistances, cognitive performance and preventative health through the acquisition, the company said.
That move comes just days after Hims & Hers also bought Trybe Labs, the New Jersey-based at-home lab testing facility. Trybe Labs will allow Hims & Hers to perform at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pretreatment testing.
Hims & Hers did not disclose the terms of either deal.
Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.
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Tesla is voluntarily recalling 376,241vehicles in the U.S. to correct an issue with failing power-assisted steering systems, according to records posted to the website of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In a safety recall report posted on the NHTSA website, Tesla said the recall includes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that were manufactured for sale in the U.S. from Feb. 28, 2023, to October 11, 2023, and that were equipped with a certain older software release.
The records said printed circuit boards in the steering systems in affected vehicles could become overstressed, causing the power-assist steering to fail in some cases when a Tesla vehicle rolled to a stop and then accelerated.
When electronic power-assist steering systems fail in a Tesla, drivers need to exert more force to steer their cars, which can increase the risk of a collision.
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Tesla told the vehicle safety regulator that it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths related to the power steering failures, and that it was offering an over-the-air software update as a remedy.
The recall follows an earlier related probe and voluntary recall in China concerning the same systems.
President Donald Trump has appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a team that is slashing the federal government workforce, and in some cases, regulations and entire agencies. Those cuts already affected the NHTSA, an agency Musk has long seen as standing in the way of some of his ambitions at Tesla.
The regulator has been engaged in a yearslong investigation into safety defects in the systems that Tesla markets currently as its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options. The features do not make Tesla cars into robotaxis. They require a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Musk’s team has led mass firings at the NHTSA, reducing the agency’s workforce and capacity to investigate companies including Tesla by about 10%.