Former Google executives have moved to block U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenas forcing their live testimony in next month’s advertising technology monopolization trial. These former Google leaders argue that their depositions already provide compelling evidence, so coming in person would be superfluous and an unnecessary burden.

They underscore in a series of filings filed last Friday that they have already spent hours under deposition--both during the initial DOJ investigation and within discovery. They argue that these testimonies should suffice, allowing all of the people living away from Washington D.C. to remain at their respective houses across America.

Christopher LaSala, Google’s former managing director for publisher solutions strategy, now a professor at Columbia Business School, contends the DOJ failed to obtain court permission to subpoena individuals living more than 100 miles from the courthouse, a federal rule mandate.

“The discovery plan doesn’t support national subpoenas, let alone to Mr. LaSala,” his petition says, noting that the court's discovery plan never provides any specific grounds for demanding national subpoenas. LaSala resides in Connecticut.

Other ex-executives were making similar protests: Eisar Lipkovitz, former VP of engineering for Google's display and video ads group (now Rippling’s head product officer), Brad Bender, a former VP in the display and video ads division at Google (now a consultant). Other witnesses--like Samuel Cox, Scott Spencer, and Rahul Srinivasan--also argue that their previous statements should be sufficient for the DoJ’s case.

They argue that in-person testimony at the trial would be of little added value, when it's a bench trial rather than jury trial. With live testimony, for merit to be added and this is obviously nowhere near so guaranteed with a judge presiding, might make the necessary difference.

The subpoena for each of the ex-Google managers offers no specific date or time at all in which they must appear for cross examination by the lawyers representing DoJ. It leaves them in suspense about when they will actually have to present themselves at court.

Sharing the same legal team as Bender, Cox, and Srinivasan, Scott Spencer-who was previously VP of Product Management for Privacy and User Trust at Google and now acts as a strategic advisor-is also represented by McGuireWoods LLP.

The goal of the DOJ in this case is to prove that Google has built a monopoly over the tech used for serving and selling ads on third-party websites, especially display ads. The trial set for September at US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is part a much broader effort on the part of government to rein in Google power in digital advertising space.

Google now faces similar suits in New York and Texas filed by a completely different group of state attorneys general. The lawsuits all claim that Google is behaving as a monopoly in advertising technology farther afield across America, away from its Silicon Valley home base.

Which evidence will be introduced at trial is still in dispute between Google and the DOJ. Google filed briefs on Friday arguing against a Justice Department motion to stop the company from claiming that it has many separate markets for advertising technology-in hopes that could perhaps bring down its perceived level of dominance within any one of them. Google also resisted an effort by the DOJ to keep out surveys of advertisers ' reactions to Google 's services.

Google’s Legal filings also noted that significant aspects of the case--including the company's 2011 acquisition of AdMeld (now DoubleClick Ads ) and 2007 purchase of DoubleClick Inc.--had been scrutinized by federal authorities at the time and found not to be anticompetitive.

For example, the Department of Justice's brief objected @Google's attempts to restrict evidence from lay witnesses (p. ex. competitors and customers on Google market power ). The Department insists that these witnesses are the ones who have been directly affected by Google's actions in digital ad space--i.e., they show how fingers truly work against thumbs.

The antitrust trial is set to start on September 9 at the Albermarle County Courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia. U. S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema will preside.

Google's attorneys include a team from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP and The Craig C. Reilly Law Office. The DOJ is represnted by attorneys from William Henry 3d, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Department of Justice's Magic Kingdom Division.

The case is U. S. et al. v Google LLC, case number 1:23-cv-00108, in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.