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The Schmidt's hit by the fan: Alphabet investor sues Google bigwigs over EU antitrust ruckus

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

That said, this suit might be a tad premature inasmuch as the alleged losses are, as yet, entirely hypothetical.

Except that they're spending money on it right now, and the current share price will to some extent reflect the potential for these future loses. Google has operations world wide, and if they end up getting taken to court all over then as plaintiff you'd want your claim at the head of the queue. And with so many things going on (EU antitrust, Paris raid, etc) it seems likely that something will stick, and stick in a big way.

Google, and indeed the wider tech industry, have been allowed to create immense walled gardens. Get inside one of these and you cannot interoperate with someone in another walled garden. They have stamped all over the principles of interoperability that underpin fair and open competition. The only reason they have got away with it is that politicians and prosecutors have yet to work out that this is what has happened, and that the consequences are real. As soon as they do, and we're beginning to see this happening in Europe, there'll be hell to pay.

My first question after seeing the headline on this article was "who is this plaintiff's lawyer billing."

It's irrelevant. Google's board have a fiduciary duty of care towards their shareholders no matter who they are. Neglect that duty in a bad enough way and you can, at least in America, end up in jail. Shareholders suing their board has happened before. So long as the plaintiff has a share, they're entitled to hold their board to account.

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