“Google Inc.’s reluctance to provide a top executive for testimony to a Senate panel probing its market power has prompted threats of subpoenas for Chief Executive Officer Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt,” Sara Forden reports for Bloomberg.
“In a letter dated June 10, the Democratic chairman and leading Republican on the antitrust subcommittee asked Google to provide one of the company’s two senior executives before Congress’s August recess,” Forden reports. “The letter urged a resolution ‘by agreement’ to avoid ‘more formal procedures,’ according to a copy of the letter obtained by Bloomberg News.”
“The threat of subpoenas is one of the ways the committee is pressuring Mountain View, California-based Google to send Page or Schmidt, according to two people familiar with negotiations between the panel and the company, “Forden reports. “Google has offered to have Chief Legal Officer David Drummond appear at the hearing, according to the letter.”
Forden reports, “The subcommittee would ‘strongly prefer’ Page or Schmidt at the proceeding, ‘which will address fundamental questions of business operations rather than merely legal issues,’ U.S. senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee wrote. Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, and Lee, of Utah, is the panel’s ranking Republican.”
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