US District Judge Amit Mehta is expected to rule by August on the best way to rein in Google’s illegal dominance over online search after ruling last year that the company was a “monopolist.” The Justice Department, rather than merely punishing past misdeeds, wants Google and CEO Sundar Pichai to sell the Chrome web browser, among other remedies.

On May 6, a group of former DOJ and Federal Trade Commission antitrust enforcers submitted an amicus brief warning the federal judge against aggressive remedies. The lawyers said their brief was made “in support of neither party” and was intended to guide Mehta on following the “proper remedy standard.”

However, many of brief’s coauthors have direct or indirect links to Google and other Big Tech firms. That includes Joe Sims, who last year dismissed criticism of Google’s widespread evidence destruction as “silly,” and Willard Tom, who once defended Google in the high-profile antitrust lawsuit filed by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.

Their arguments closely match those of the defense offered by Google, which claims the DOJ’s proposals go far beyond the bounds of antitrust law and that the court risks jeopardizing American AI leadership – and even national security.

The lawyers’ links to Big Tech raised alarms with Google’s critics, including Sacha Haworth, executive director at the Tech Oversight Project, who told The Post that it “speaks volumes that the only people rushing to Google’s defense are people paid by Google to care.”

Google faces a potential breakup of its business in the search trial. AP

“If Google is broken up, it will be a win for our digital economy that will lead to lower prices and more choices for consumers,” Haworth added.

Aside from a forced divestment of Chrome, the DOJ wants Google to share its search data with rivals. The agency has also asked Mehta to consider the potential impact of Google’s massive investments in AI-powered search when crafting any remedies.

Elsewhere, the feds want Google to be barred from paying billions to companies like Apple to ensure its search engine is set as the default option on most smartphones. They also propose a forced divestiture of Google’s Android software if initial remedies prove ineffective.

Google, led by CEO Sundar Pichai, is fighting to avoid a forced divestiture of Chrome. Getty Images

“We’ve long said the DOJ’s proposals go miles beyond the Court’s decision,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “We appreciate that a wide range of experts, academics and businesses agree.”

An amicus brief – also known as a “friend of the court” brief – generally includes information that interested third parties want to flag for the judge’s consideration before reaching a verdict.

In a filing, the brief’s coauthors noted that they were not paid by any outside party and that no outside party had contributed to the writing.

Contributors included Tad Lipsky, who heads up the competition advocacy program at George Mason University’s Global Antitrust Institute – which has received millions in funding from Google and other Big Tech firms while frequently arguing for a light touch on antitrust enforcement.

Sims retired as a partner at law firm Jones Day in 2016. In July 2024, Jones Day successfully secured dismissal of a class-action suit accusing Google of antitrust violations tied to its Maps service.

Google faced criticism for destroying employee chat logs that it had been ordered to preserve. REUTERS

Last August, Sims raised eyebrows when he argued that Mehta was “silly” for criticizing Google over its deletion of employee chat logs during the DOJ’s search trial – in violation of court orders to preserve evidence.

“No firm has an obligation to create a paper trail for people or entities that may want to attack it,” Sims wrote on X. “If anything, it has a fiduciary obligation to do just the opposite.”

Tom is a former partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius who represented Google against “Fortnite” maker Epic Games’s antitrust lawsuit until his retirement in July 2022. Google eventually lost the suit in a bombshell ruling that has major implications for its “Google Play” app store.

Richard Parker previously represented Apple in the ebooks case bought the DOJ and currently works at Milbank Tweed, a firm that advised Google in the search trial and helped argue its ongoing appeal of the Epic Games verdict.

The brief notes that Parker contributed in “his personal capacity” and had “not worked for Google on this matter or any other matter.”

US District Judge Amit Mehta is pictured. AFP/Getty Images

Terry Calvani worked law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer from 2005 to 2019 – a period of time in which the firm served as an outside counsel for Google in several lawsuits. From 2020 to 2025, Calvini was a senior adviser at strategic communications firm Brunswick Group, which counts Google as a client.

Several enforcers who backed the amicus brief, including Sims and Lipsky, are listed as authors for Truth on the Market – a competition law-focused blog with close ties to the Big Tech-funded International Center for Law and Economics.

Jon Neuchterlein is a nonresident senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, which acknowledges on its website that it has received from donations from the likes of Google, Amazon, and Apple, among other tech firms.

Judge Mehta is expected to rule on potential remedies by August. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

From 2015 to 2024, Neuchterlein was a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin. During his tenure, the firm counted Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Intel among its clients.

In their brief, the antitrust lawyers urged Mehta to take “caution” when considering two elements of the DOJ’s proposal – the forced Chrome divestiture and the search data-sharing requirement – to avoid overstepping the bounds of antitrust law.

“Antitrust remedies in a monopoly maintenance case are intended to terminate the unlawful conduct and prevent its recurrence, and remediate proven harm to competition caused by the illegal conduct,” the brief said.

The lawyers added that remedies that “further than that or that are not narrowly designed to achieve those goals can undermine the purpose of the antitrust laws by inhibiting the very robust competition that those laws are intended to promote.”

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After fleeing criminal charges in Tokyo two years ago, the former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn waged a public campaign attacking the Japanese justice system, arguing that conditions in the country’s prisons were designed to “lead you to despair.”

Now, Michael Taylor, the American who engineered Mr. Ghosn’s dramatic escape, is experiencing those harsh conditions for himself, his legal team says, as it campaigns to have him returned to the United States.

Mr. Taylor, the former Green Beret who spirited Mr. Ghosn out of Japan in a speaker box, has suffered frostbite because of a lack of heating at Fuchu Prison in suburban Tokyo, where he is serving a two-year sentence, his lawyers say .

Mr. Taylor, 61, and his son, Peter, 28, who aided the escape, pleaded guilty in June in a Tokyo court after having been arrested in the United States and extradited. They are now awaiting approval from the Japanese authorities as they seek to serve the rest of their sentences in an American prison.

While Michael Taylor may be one of Japan’s highest-profile convicts, his experience in its penal system is not unique. Japan has come under scrutiny at home and abroad for its treatment of prisoners and detainees, with critics pointing to inadequate medical care and an almost ubiquitous lack of heating and cooling that can lead to life-threatening illness.

Since being sentenced last year, Mr. Taylor has been kept in an unheated cell, sitting on a thin mat that offers little protection from the cold cement floor, said one of his US-based lawyers, Paul Kelly.

Mr. Taylor’s frostbite developed while he labored in a prison factory, Mr. Kelly said. Fuchu inmates are not allowed to wear gloves at work, he added, and they are required to wash their hands multiple times a day in cold water as part of the facility’s hygiene regimen.

A prison doctor diagnosed Mr Taylor with frostbite in January, according to Mr Kelly. His fingers had turned red and were starting to blister, the lawyer said.

Mr. Taylor is not able to speak directly with his family or his US legal team, but he described the diagnosis to one of his Japanese lawyers during a recent jailhouse visit. The lawyer reported Mr Taylor’s condition in emails to his family and Mr Kelly.

“We’re distressed,” said Lamia Taylor, Mr Taylor’s wife. “This is serious now. This is a health issue.”

Contacted by The New York Times, Japan’s department of corrections said that it could not comment on individual cases but that prisoners were provided adequate clothing, blankets and medical care for cold conditions.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Tokyo declined to comment on Mr. Taylor, citing privacy considerations, but said that the United States had “long expressed concern to Japanese authorities about inadequate heating in prisons and detention centers, and continue to encourage the authorities to improve conditions.”

In recent weeks, as Mr. Taylor and the other prisoners have been restricted to their cells to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, he has had more access to blankets, allowing his condition to improve, Mr. Kelly said.

Still, Mr. Taylor’s experience highlights longstanding concerns about the Japanese prison system, which local activists have criticized as unsafe and overly punitive.

updated

Feb 4, 2022, 9:47 am ET

Yuko Shiota, a spokeswoman for the Center for Prisoners’ Rights, an advocacy organization that campaigns for prison reform in Japan, said that prisoners were often diagnosed with frostbite, sometimes so severe that it could lead to amputation.

“They say they have an insufficient budget, and the problem has not improved,” she said of the lack of prison heating systems.

In the 2020 edition of its annual report on global human rights, the US State Department noted that in Japan “some prisons continued to lack adequate medical care and sufficient heating in the winter or cooling in the summer.”

Mistreatment of foreign prisoners and detainees in Japan has been thrust into the spotlight in recent years by several cases in which a lack of adequate medical care led to serious injury or even death.

Last spring, a young woman from Sri Lanka died in a detention facility in Nagoya after officials there repeatedly refused to grant her requests to be transferred to a hospital. A government investigation into her death declined to assign blame but recommended reforms to the center’s medical procedures.

In fleeing Japan in 2019 just before New Year’s Day, Mr. Ghosn cited his belief that Japan’s justice system would never give him a fair trial. He was out on bail after having been arrested multiple times on charges of financial wrongdoing — charges that he called a product of corporate intrigue backed by the Japanese government.

Mr. Taylor and his son helped him plan and execute his escape, part of which included being hidden in a box that was put on a flight first to Turkey and then to Beirut. Mr. Ghosn has remained in Lebanon, free from the threat of extradition, and he has been trying to rehabilitate his image.

The Taylors returned to the United States, where the father shared with the news media his story of helping Mr. Ghosn flee. The American authorities arrested the Taylors in the spring of 2020, acting on an extradition request from Japan.

They spent months battling the extradition, arguing in court that prison conditions in Japan amounted to torture. But they were handed over to Japan last March and put on trial three months later. Mr Taylor was given a sentence of two years, and his son received one year and eight months. Peter Taylor is being held in a different prison.

In October, the United States approved the Taylors’ application to serve out the remainder of their sentences in the US prison system. But the Japanese government is “dragging their heels,” Mr. Kelly said.

An official from Japan’s Ministry of Justice said that the transfer process typically took at least a year.

Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.

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