Top Lawyer Is Selected As U.S. Mulls Google Suit

The Justice Department has quietly hired one of the nation's best-known litigators, former Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Sanford Litvack, for a possible antitrust challenge to Google's growing power in advertising. Litvack's hiring is the strongest signal yet that the US is preparing to take court action against Google and its search-advertising deal with Yahoo. The two companies combined would account for more than 80% of US online-search ads. For weeks, US lawyers have been deposing witnesses and issuing subpoenas for documents to support a challenge to the deal. Such efforts don't always mean a case will be brought, however. Litvack, who was the Justice Department antitrust chief under President Jimmy Carter, has been asked to examine the evidence gathered so far and to build a case if the decision is made to proceed.