Sundar Pichai to Appear in Court for Google Play Antitrust Case

Epic Games Inc. plans to summon Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet Inc., to testify in an antitrust lawsuit regarding Google Play policies. This trial has the potential to jeopardize the substantial revenue generated by the app marketplace, amounting to billions of dollars.

Pichai and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney are listed as witnesses in the trial, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 6 in federal court in San Francisco. The lawsuit will determine whether Google Play’s practices are illegal and prevent competition, according to court filings. The high-stakes battle began when Epic sued Alphabet’s Google in 2020, alleging that its app store’s distribution, payment and payment practices are illegal.

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The dispute is part of a broader antitrust battle that also includes complaints filed by attorneys general in nearly three dozen states, consumers and Match Group Inc., all of which accuse Google of operating as a monopoly.

Pichai is also scheduled to testify in the coming weeks at an ongoing trial in Washington in a lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department that accuses Alphabet of maintaining a monopoly on online search.

Last month, Alphabet tentatively settled claims from complaints by consumers and government attorneys that Google Play abuses its control over Android mobile apps. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed in court. If finalized, the settlement would narrow the broad antitrust battle and leave Google to defend against claims by Epic and Match that it used monopoly power to crush rivals in the Android app distribution market.

Epic’s lawyers are expected to question Pichai on the witness stand for an hour on topics including the Android business and Google’s contracts with wireless carriers and mobile device makers, court documents showed Thursday. Google’s lawyers can separately call Pichai to the witness stand for 30 minutes to defend its app market practices.

Epic and Google’s lawyers plan to call Sweeney on the witness stand for 90 minutes. His credentials cover Epic’s Games Store business and game developer experience on Google Play and Android.

The case is In Re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation, 21-md-02981, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

(Updates on Google’s tentative settlement with states and consumers. An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of Google’s app marketplace.)

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