Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google lawsuit saga continues as the tech giant prepares for closing arguments on Monday in a case concerning its alleged illegal domination of online advertising markets. This latest update will include comments from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning Google’s potential breaking of antitrust laws.
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It will also provide Google with a chance to make its own counterarguments for the case. The company has already claimed that the DOJ is bending antitrust laws with this lawsuit, but none of that matters if the judge rules against Google.
What This Means for Google
If Google loses this lawsuit, it might be forced to sell its Google Ad Manager division. It bears mentioning that Google has already considered this option in an E.U. lawsuit, but it wasn’t deemed a big enough change by prosecutors overseas.
On top of this, Google also has to deal with other lawsuits that could result in further business sales at the company. The DOJ has another lawsuit against GOOGL over its command of the online search market. That lawsuit is seeking a breakup of Google that may result in the sale of its Google Chrome and Android businesses. These splits could have a negative effect on the company’s performance.
However, investors don’t seem overly worried about today’s lawsuit news, with shares of GOOGL climbing 2.08% higher as of this writing. The stock is also up 20.25% year-to-date and 23.14% over the past 12 months.
Is GOOGL Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Alphabet is Strong Buy based on 27 Buy and seven Hold ratings. With that comes an average GOOGL price prediction of $207.90, a high of $240.00, and a low of $170. This represents a potential upside of 24.05% for GOOGL shares.
