Texas Hires Lawyers to Handle Antitrust Case Against Google

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Photo: Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/Associated Press

Updated Dec. 15, 2020 9:26 pm ET

WASHINGTON—Texas’s attorney general said Tuesday he is hiring two prominent law firms to handle a possible antitrust case against Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 0.44% Google, a signal that the filing of a lawsuit is likely imminent.

Texas has been leading a coalition of state attorneys general that has been zeroing in on Google’s dominant presence in the digital advertising market, according to people familiar with the matter as well as a civil subpoena sent last year by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Mr. Paxton said he intends to hire the Lanier Law Firm, a prominent trial firm with Texas roots, as well as Keller Lenkner, a Chicago-based firm focused on complex litigation.

“Texas law requires the Texas Attorney General’s Office to notify the [Legislative Budget Board] prior to retaining outside counsel for such actions,” Mr. Paxton said in a statement. “That notification has occurred.”

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

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Google has denied any anticompetitive behavior, saying it operates in highly competitive markets and that its services benefit consumers and businesses.

Google’s ad-tech business consists of software used to buy and sell ads on sites across the web. The company owns the dominant tool at every link in the complex chain between online publishers and advertisers, giving it unique power over the monetization of digital content. Many publishers and advertising rivals have charged that it has tied these tools together and to its owned-and-operated properties, such as search and YouTube, in anticompetitive ways.

Google has argued that the ad-tech industry is competitive and that moves it has made to merge products were aimed at creating a better experience for customers.

The states have been coordinating closely with the Justice Department, which filed an antitrust suit against Google Oct. 20. The Justice Department has also been posing increasingly detailed questions—to Google’s rivals and executives inside the company itself—about how Google’s third-party advertising business interacts with publishers and advertisers, according to people familiar with that probe.

Lanier Law Firm founder Mark Lanier is a trial lawyer who has secured multibillion-dollar verdicts against pharmaceutical companies and has successfully battled oil companies and other big corporations, according to his firm. The firm includes Kenneth Starr, the former U.S. solicitor general who served as independent counsel during the Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton.

Keller Lenkner is a relatively new firm whose founders have backgrounds in litigation financing and specialize in innovative approaches to complex issues, such as how big tech companies collect and use personal data.