Legal News

DOJ Hires Sandy Litvack for Possible Google Antitrust Challenge

By Dan Slater

Welcome to a rarefied club, Mr. Litvack.

Sandy Litvack, a former Walt Disney vice chairman and recently-resigned Hogan & Hartson partner, has been hired by the DOJ for a possible antitrust challenge to Google’s online advertising juggernaut. In June, Google struck a revenue-sharing deal with Yahoo that gives Google the right to sell search and text ads on Yahoo sites. As the WSJ reports, it isn’t clear whether a challenge would target the Google-Yahoo deal alone or take on broader aspects of Google’s conduct in the online-advertising business.

It’s relatively rare for the DOJ to hire outside counsel. Litvack, the DOJ’s antitrust chief under Jimmy Carter, joins a clan that includes David Boies, who was brought in as a special counsel to build the antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998, and Stephen Axinn, who was hired to challenge WorldCom’s proposed buyout of Sprint.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).