Cross-examining with care: The Tipline for 9 November 2023

An MBA from Stanford is nothing to be embarrassed about – unless you’re a Google exec testifying about the company’s list of antitrust “trigger words”. Google vice president Jamie Rosenberg rejected the notion that he once added in-house counsel to an email because he wanted to discuss “leverage” in negotiating a new search deal with AT&T. Department of Justice attorney Megan Bellshaw noted during cross-examination that Google had warned against that very language: “Using the word ‘leverage’ may make you sound like you went to business school, but it implies exploitation and an absence of consumer choice, which is not what we’re about.”