One in every of Amit P. Mehta’s first circumstances after changing into a federal choose in late 2014 proved to be a crash course in antitrust.
Sysco, the nation’s largest distributor of meals to eating places and cafeterias, was making an attempt to purchase the rival US Meals, and the Federal Commerce Fee had sued to dam the $3.5 billion deal, arguing that it might stifle competitors.
Decide Mehta instructed attorneys on each side that he would wish assist educating himself. Over the following few months, he was a tireless and vivid pupil, in line with attorneys for the federal government and Sysco, absorbing the small print of antitrust legislation and asking sharp questions on precedents, financial concept and the food-distribution enterprise.
After the trial in 2015, Decide Mehta wrote a complete, carefully reasoned 128-page opinion and ordered a short lived halt to the deal. Inside days, Sysco deserted its acquisition plan.
“I didn’t just like the consequence, however it was a well-thought-out, strong opinion,” stated Richard Parker, who represented Sysco and is now a accomplice on the worldwide legislation agency Milbank.
Decide Mehta, 52, will quickly be bringing his expertise from that case to assist make a landmark antitrust resolution.
Joined by a bunch of state attorneys basic, the Justice Division sued Google in U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia, alleging that the corporate illegally protected its monopoly in web search, partly by paying billions to steer corporations, together with Apple and Samsung, to make use of its search engine. Google has countered that it did so to create the very best expertise for customers.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday and Friday in essentially the most vital federal swimsuit difficult a tech large for the reason that authorities took on Microsoft within the Nineteen Nineties. Decide Mehta’s ruling can also be prone to set a precedent for a sequence of U.S. antitrust circumstances which are already within the pipeline in opposition to corporations together with Amazon, Apple and Meta.
Whereas the stakes are far greater immediately, Decide Mehta’s dealing with of the Sysco case — his earlier main antitrust ruling — matches a constant sample, in line with 10 former legislation agency colleagues, former legislation clerks, antitrust consultants and attorneys whose circumstances he has tried. They described the choose as good and cautious, a tough employee and a voracious learner who made a real effort to totally weigh each side of a case.
He doesn’t have a voluminous report of antitrust rulings, other than Sysco. Whereas it’s onerous to foretell the way in which he’ll rule, his judicial conduct so far means that no matter he decides in U.S. et al. v. Google will more than likely show tough to overrule on attraction.
“It’s been a particularly lengthy, arduous street, and that’s not simply this trial however the length of the case,” Decide Mehta stated in November as testimony within the trial drew to an in depth. “I can let you know, as I sit right here immediately, I do not know what I’m going to do.”
Decide Mehta tells his legislation clerks {that a} truthful trial begins with onerous work and preparation. You by no means know what could also be necessary in a case, he says, so learn each web page, research each case legislation quotation.
“You be taught there’s no sure to the hours he’ll put in to get it proper,” stated Alex Haskell, a former legislation clerk who just lately left the White Home, the place he was a high legislative aide.
Decide Mehta declined an interview request by way of his chambers.
Born in India, he got here to America along with his household when he was 1 yr previous. His father, Priyavadan Mehta, was an engineer; his mom, Ragini Mehta, a laboratory technician. They settled in suburban Baltimore.
Decide Mehta graduated from Georgetown College and the College of Virginia College of Regulation with tutorial honors. He peeled off from a rising profession at Zuckerman Spaeder, a litigation boutique, to grow to be a public defender for 5 years, taking a wage lower for a unique form of alternative.
“He actually wished to do this work, symbolize individuals who couldn’t afford it,” stated William W. Taylor III, a founding accomplice of Zuckerman Spaeder.
The stint as a public defender gave Decide Mehta a wealth of courtroom expertise — good coaching for a future choose. He returned to Zuckerman Spaeder and later turned a accomplice, working as a legal and civil protection lawyer on a variety of circumstances. In 2014, the Obama administration nominated him to be a federal choose, and he was confirmed that December.
Decide Mehta was randomly assigned to the Google case in October 2020, after the Trump administration’s Justice Division filed its antitrust swimsuit.
Within the trial, Decide Mehta requested witnesses occasional questions, principally for elaboration and clarification. He has additionally sometimes deployed humor within the otherwise-staid proceedings, joking on the trial’s opening day that the courtroom stuffed with attorneys had “the best focus of blue fits in anybody location.”
However his main position in shaping the case got here earlier than the trial started, in a ruling final August that narrowed its scope.
Decide Mehta determined that the federal government might proceed to trial with its allegation that Google illegally shielded its monopoly with multibillion-dollar offers to make its search engine the default on smartphones and browsers. However he dominated out different claims, together with the cost that Google broke the legislation by boosting its personal merchandise in search outcomes over these of specialised websites, like Amazon and Yelp.
Streamlining the case to what Decide Mehta deemed the core points helped maintain the trial testimony at 10 weeks, as scheduled.
Early within the trial, Decide Mehta closed the courtroom largely to the press and public, bowing to arguments made by Google and different corporations that it was mandatory to guard confidential enterprise info. After an outcry, Decide Mehta opened up the court docket three weeks into the trial.
Later, Decide Mehta conceded that this was a misstep. “I ought to have been a bit of bit extra probing of the events as to how a lot of it actually wanted to be beneath seal,” he stated in court docket on Oct. 19. “So I’ll fess as much as that.”
Nonetheless, essential court docket paperwork remained closely or fully redacted. And paperwork weren’t being routinely shared with the press, even ones with out delicate info. After The New York Instances, supported by different information organizations, filed a movement for larger and extra well timed entry to reveals, Decide Mehta loosened issues up considerably and compelled Google to unseal extra paperwork. One notable disclosure: Google paid Apple and others greater than $26 billion a yr to make its search engine the default on smartphones and browsers.
It’s unclear what Decide Mehta will rule, authorized consultants say, partly as a result of he hasn’t demonstrated an overarching antitrust ideology. However he’s identified for paying meticulous consideration to the proof and assessing whether or not it conforms to precedents in case legislation.
That fact-based, case-by-case strategy appeared as he dominated on legal fits in opposition to pro-Trump rioters who had been concerned within the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Final Could, Decide Mehta sentenced Stewart Rhodes, the chief of the far-right Oath Keepers militia and an organizer of the riot, to 18 years in jail after he was discovered responsible of seditious conspiracy. Mr. Rhodes, who pleaded not responsible, instructed the court docket he was a “political prisoner.”
At his sentencing, Decide Mehta known as Mr. Rhodes “an ongoing menace and peril to this nation, to the republic and the very cloth of our democracy.”
However Decide Mehta handled Matthew Mark Wooden, one of many first rioters to enter the Capitol constructing, very otherwise. Mr. Wooden, who was 23 when he participated within the riot, expressed regret after pleading responsible to obstruction of an official continuing. Prosecutors requested a sentence of 57 months. However Decide Mehta sentenced Mr. Wooden to 12 months of house detention, telling him, “I don’t suppose this sentence ought to spoil your life.”
By all accounts, Decide Mehta is extensively learn and has various cultural tastes. In a music copyright case, he included a footnote that stated he didn’t want any skilled testimony when it got here to hip-hop music and lyrics. He had listened to hip-hop for many years, he wrote, and his favourite artists, reflecting his age, included Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake and Eminem.
Decide Mehta is a passionate sports activities fan, particularly in relation to the Baltimore Orioles. At an occasion to rejoice his appointment as a choose, Dr. Sanjay Desai, a buddy since childhood and a professor at Johns Hopkins Medication, joked that the choose “will defend the Orioles it doesn’t matter what the details are.”
Although his courtroom expertise in antitrust is restricted, Decide Mehta has been engaged within the area, serving as a judicial consultant to the American Bar Affiliation’s antitrust division and infrequently talking at its occasions.
He presents himself as a “generalist federal choose,” then proceeds to point out a complicated understanding of antitrust legislation, stated William Kovacic, a legislation professor at George Washington College.
“It’s going to be tough for a reviewing court docket to say, ‘You bought it fallacious,’” stated Mr. Kovacic, a former chairman of the F.T.C. “They are going to be inclined to present Decide Mehta the advantage of the doubt that they’ll belief his work.”
David McCabe contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.
