By Declan McCullagh
Wednesday, September 10 2008 10:16 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62045962,00.htm

The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly hired a well-known antitrust litigator for a possible court challenge to a planned advertising deal between Google and Yahoo.

Former Walt Disney vice chairman Sandy Litvack has been hired to head any legal challenge to the ad deal, according to an article published on Monday by the Dow Jones News Service.

It is not clear, the article states, whether any eventual lawsuit would target only the Google-Yahoo deal, or represent a broader assault on Google's business practices. Lawyers have been reportedly deposing witnesses and subpoenaing documents to support a courtroom challenge, which probably would be filed in Washington DC.

Litvack was an assistant attorney general for antitrust in the Carter administration; until recently he was a partner at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. As of Monday, his name no longer appears on the firm's list of attorneys.

His now-deleted Hogan & Hartson biography said: "Sandy has successfully defended a number of shareholder derivative suits, as well as a variety of antitrust cases. His work has entailed representing both plaintiffs and defendants in both jury and non-jury cases."

Also this week, the U.S. Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the Department of Justice opposing the Yahoo-Google search-advertising deal.

The Department of Justice has begun gathering information from third parties in a probe of the advertising deal between Google and Yahoo.

Yahoo announced the non-exclusive partnership in June. Under the deal, rival Google would supply Yahoo with some search ads, a move that could increase Yahoo search revenue but that also gives Google even more power in the market.

Yahoo expects the 10-year deal to raise revenue by US$800 million in its first year and to provide an extra US$250 million to US$450 million in incremental operating cash flow.

The partnership idea came to light during Microsoft's attempt to acquire Yahoo, which put more pressure on the Internet company to improve its financial results.

Faced with that financial challenge and a desire to push the Google ad deal through, Yahoo proposed to regulators that the search-advertising deal be subjected to a review process similar to one used for major mergers under the U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, said a source familiar with Yahoo.

Under the proposal, which was made to regulators when Microsoft still had a buyout offer on the table for Yahoo, the Internet-search pioneer said it would give the Department of Justice three and half months to review the deal before it implements the search-advertising partnership.

Google's share of the U.S. search market reached 70.77 percent in July, according to Hitwise's most recent figures. Yahoo's share of the market declined to 18.55 percent at the same time.

This article was first published as a blog on CNET News.com.