Key Points

• Google’s parent company Alphabet has stacked its legal team with former Department of Justice employees as it fights two separate antitrust lawsuits from the agency, public profiles show.
• Experts say this kind of hiring, which is common among businesses, can be beneficial to a company because of the unique insight, touch or credibility that an an ex-government attorney might hold when it comes to their former colleagues.
• Still, ethics rules bar former government employees from working on cases in which they were personally and substantially involved

In this article

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Google’s parent company Alphabet has stacked its legal team with former Department of Justice employees as it fights two separate antitrust lawsuits from the agency, public profiles show.

Former DOJ employees make up both its in-house team and members of outside counsel firms it employs. The company has hired three former DOJ officials into regulatory roles since May 2022, and one before that in 2021, according to public information including social media profiles. Google also uses four different outside counsel firms loaded with nearly 20 former DOJ officials, many of whom worked in the Antitrust Division at various times.

Such hiring to its internal regulatory team is a reflection of the intense scrutiny Google is facing from governments around the world. It can be a signal that a company anticipates dealing with...

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