Google Asks DOJ to Probe Whether Kanter Can Treat It Fairly

(Bloomberg) -- Google pressed the U.S. Department of Justice to probe whether new antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter should be recused from investigating the tech giant due to his past work representing its rivals.

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Google, in a letter from a lawyer at Hogan Lovells US LLP representing the Alphabet Inc.-owned company, questioned Kanter’s impartiality by pointing to his past legal work against Google on behalf of Microsoft Corp., Yelp Inc., Angi Inc. and others.

“Failure to recuse (assistant attorney general) Kanter might also add fuel to suggestions that the Department’s actions might be unduly influenced by Google’s competitors -- competitors that AAG Kanter himself represented,” Virginia Gibson, a Hogan Lovells lawyer, wrote to the Justice Department. The letter was reported earlier by the New York Times.

“We have requested that the Department of Justice’s Ethics Office examine whether AAG Kanter should be recused from the department’s litigation and investigations regarding Google,” Peter Schottenfels, a Google spokesman, said in a statement. “Mr. Kanter’s past statements and work representing competitors who have advocated for the cases brought by the department raise serious concerns about his ability to be impartial.”

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Google’s letter echoes a June request from rival Amazon.com Inc., which asked the Federal Trade Commission to bar Chair Lina Khan from handling antitrust enforcement decisions affecting the company. Khan wrote a paper in 2017 criticizing the e-commerce company’s dominance. In July, Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook, also asked the FTC for Khan’s recusal from actions against the social network company.

(Updates with Justice Department declining to comment in the fifth paragraph.)

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