In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation

Background

Certain plaintiffs in the coordinated multidistrict litigation moved for partial summary judgment based on issue preclusion. Issue preclusion is a rule that can prevent a party from relitigating an issue already decided in an earlier case. The plaintiffs relied on Judge Leonie Brinkema’s findings after a trial in an earlier related proceeding brought by the United States and several states against Google.

In the earlier proceeding, Judge Brinkema found that the relevant geographic market for certain publisher ad-server and ad-exchange services used in open-web display advertising was worldwide, subject to specified exclusions. In this multidistrict litigation, the plaintiffs’ pleadings had alleged that the relevant geographic market was the United States. Several plaintiffs moved to amend their complaints principally to allege a worldwide market as an alternative to a United States market. One proposed amendment alleged a worldwide market with a United States submarket.

Google’s objections

Google opposed the amendment motions. It argued that the motions were filed after the deadline in the scheduling order, that adding a worldwide market would prejudice Google, and that the proposed amendments would be futile. Google also argued that differences between the geographic market alleged in this litigation and the market found in the earlier proceeding made issue preclusion inappropriate.

Court’s analysis

The court concluded that the amendments would not cause Google unfair legal prejudice. Google had conducted discovery and defended against claims involving both United States and worldwide markets in the earlier proceeding. Google’s experts had also analyzed both market definitions in this multidistrict litigation. The court rejected as insufficient Google’s argument that it might have benefited from additional time to develop its defenses.

The court also found good cause to modify the amendment schedule. Although the plaintiffs could have sought amendment sooner after Judge Brinkema’s April 17, 2025 decision, the court assessed their diligence in the context of ongoing expert discovery, class-certification briefing, and summary-judgment briefing. The court stated that conforming the pleadings to the earlier fact-finding could advance a just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution of the multidistrict litigation.

The court rejected Google’s futility argument. Under Rule 8(d)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, parties may plead alternative statements when at least one alternative is sufficient. The court held that pleadings alleging worldwide and United States markets in the alternative would survive a motion to dismiss. The court did not decide whether the plaintiffs’ pending motions for partial summary judgment based on issue preclusion were proper.

Disposition

The motions of the Advertiser Class, the Publisher Class, Inform, the Daily Mail, and Gannett to amend their complaints in the identified forms were GRANTED. Amended pleadings were ordered filed within seven days, with answers due within fourteen days afterward. The motions to seal submissions supporting or opposing the motions to amend were provisionally granted. The court directed the Clerk to terminate the listed motions. Judge Castel did not rule in this order on the pending partial-summary-judgment motions based on issue preclusion.