Google CEO Sundar Pichai is ready to defend his company’s controversial app store practices next week during a court battle with “Fortnite” maker Epic Games — marking the second time in three weeks that the Big Tech firm’s boss has testified at a serious antitrust trial.
Epic’s attorneys are expected to grill Pichai in San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, an organization spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The video game publisher has accused Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly over the Android app marketplace through its “Play” store.
Pichai could face questions for up to an hour – and is probably going to be pressed on Google’s payments to major developers corresponding to Activision-Blizzard and Riot Games dating back to 2020.
Epic alleges that the payment strategy, generally known as “Project Hug,” was a “bribe and block” scheme meant to dissuade corporations from creating their very own app stores.
Meanwhile, Google’s attorneys are expected to ask Pichai for roughly half-hour about competition the corporate faces from other app stores, amongst other topics.
![Sundar Pichai](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/NYPICHPDPICT000070762780.jpg?w=1024)
The corporate has asserted that its payments were essential moves to stave off difficult by Apple’s App Store and other similar marketplaces.
Pichai has been front and center as Google scrambles to stave off an array of regulatory challenges.
Last month, the Justice Department questioned Pichai about Google’s destruction of internal chat logs as a part of its landmark attempt to break up the corporate’s online search empire.
Google CFO Ruth Porat and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney are also expected to testify on the app store antitrust trial. The case is anticipated to last for roughly 4 weeks and conclude in early December.
![Sundar Pichai](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/11/NYPICHPDPICT000070904683.jpg?w=1024)
Earlier in the trial, the 10-person jury was told that Google once gave “Call of Duty” parent Activision-Blizzard a whopping $360 million in incentives to launch its video game on the Play store.
On the time, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had purportedly grumbled about Google’s policy of taking a 30% cut of revenue from in-app purchases.
The lawsuit dates back to 2020, when “Fortnite” was removed out of the Google Play store after Epic enabled a feature allowing customers to pay it directly.
Epic filed an identical lawsuit against Apple, which resulted in a split verdict that mostly favored Apple. Each corporations have appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.