Alphabet CEO Denies Epic Games' Accusations of Concealing Evidence

JAKARTA - Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai was a witness in the antitrust trial on Tuesday, November 14. During the trial, Pichai defended Google and dismissed Epic Games' accusations.

From the Reuters report, Epic Games is trying to prove that Google is hiding a number of pieces of evidence, including sensitive communications, so that their position is safe during the trial. Their accusations were attached to a document.

This document is Google's internal data. There is a message reminding employees that, “Anything you write may be reviewed in legal discovery.” Apart from that, there is evidence of a chat from Pichai who requested that message history be turned off so that all messages would be deleted.

Of course, Pichai dismissed these accusations. During an examination session by Google's lawyers, Pichai said that he never hid any documents and only used privilege labels on documents that were confidential.

However, Pichai acknowledged Epic's first piece of evidence when questioned by the judge. He confirmed that Google gives full responsibility to employees regarding chats that are relevant to the litigation.

However, the rules that have been in effect since 2008 have been revised according to Pichai's statement. The Alphabet official did not explain further when the regulations were revised and when the regulations were enforced.

So far, Google has tried to deny various accusations from Epic Games regarding its illegal monopoly on the Play Store. This case started when Fortnite entered the Play Store and added a payment system via third-party applications.

Epic does not want to use Google's payment system and is trying to avoid having to pay fees to Google. As a result of this action, Google removed their application from the Play Store.