Can Alphabet Shake Off the U.S. Antitrust Case?

Alphabet (GOOGL) is under intense scrutiny as the U.S. Justice Department takes the company to court.  The U.S. government’s antitrust case against Alphabet targets the company’s search business, which the Justice Department alleges maintains a monopoly by paying rivals to make its search engine the default search on web browsers.  The U.S. wants Alphabet to change its business practices, potentially pay damages, and restructure itself.

The case against Alphabet is the most serious case against a mega-cap technology company since the U.S. antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft (MSFT) in the 1990s.  The trial began late last month and is expected to last ten weeks.  Despite the headwinds of the antitrust trial, shares of Alphabet have been resilient, recently outperforming Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN).  Alphabet shares have soared 50% this year and are less than 5% below September’s 1-1/2 year high, while Apple and Amazon are down more than -12% from their recent peaks.