Antitrust enforcers prepare final blitz against Big Tech

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—The Biden administration’s top antitrust officials plan to take more shots at the tech industry before leaving office, in a race to cap four years of aggressive enforcement. No action looms larger than the Justice Department’s next move in the antitrust case it won challenging Google’s efforts to maintain a monopoly in search.

In a court filing due Wednesday, the department is preparing to ask a judge to consider structural changes to Google’s business. Google would have to divest its Chrome browser or Android mobile operating system if it doesn’t limit how it ties its ubiquitous mobile products to the use of its search engine, according to a document seen by The Wall Street Journal. It also would be forced to stop paying partners such as Apple billions of dollars a year to make Google’s search engine the default on web browsers, the document shows.

Google has said that spinning off Chrome and Android would harm those products, which are offered free to users. “The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership," said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. The department’s antitrust division also is preparing a possible legal challenge to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion bid for Juniper Networks, people familiar with the matter said.

The division held a meeting with top company officials last week to lay out the government’s concerns, the people said. Such meetings are typically a company’s final chance to try to head off a lawsuit. No final decision has been made.