Google has reached an agreement in principle with U.S. states to settle an antitrust lawsuit for its alleged conduct in the Google Play Store, according to a court filing on Tuesday, September 5. This lawsuit was led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and attorneys general from California, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. 

The lawsuit, which accused Google of monopolistic practices, was filed in 2021 and alleged the company inflated prices for paid apps and in-app purchases in the Android app market. Google was also accused of imposing technical barriers for third-party app developers and that it forced app developers and users to use its payment processing service, Google Play Billing, which charges fees as high as 30% per transaction. “Google’s anticompetitive conduct harms consumers and app developers, both at the point of app distribution and when a consumer later purchases in-app digital products,” the original complaint argued in part.

In 2021, Google responded to the lawsuit in a blog post saying, “it’s strange that a group of state attorneys general chose to file a lawsuit attacking a system that provides more openness and choice than others.” Google said it did not have a comment at that time. “No company is too big to play by the rules, including Google. We brought this lawsuit because it is illegal to use monopoly power to drive up prices,” the attorneys general said in a statement.

The decision to settle this case didn’t come with much in the way of information from the parties involved – court documents only state that the agreement had been reached and asked for a future trial date of November 6 to be vacated along with suspension of pre-trial deadlines. On Wednesday, the attorneys general said the Play Store settlement agreement, which will be subject to court approval, has yet to be finalized and more details will be shared publicly in the next 30 days.

If the court doesn’t accept the settlement, “the parties shall be returned to their respective litigation positions” and the trial will go on. No settlement amount was mentioned, and it appears that only “U.S. state and territories as well as the named consumer plaintiffs” are party to the settlement. That means several corporate plaintiffs on the suit, including Epic Games and dating website Match.com, appear to not be giving up the fight. Neither company’s lawyers responded to questions.

The tech giant is battling another closely watched antitrust showdown this month. In mid-September, Google is going to trial against a group of states and the Justice Department alleging the design of its search page has harmed rivals such as Yelp or Expedia.

The Justice Department first sued Google during the Trump administration over its dominance in online search. Another lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration in January, which argues Google’s ad tech business should be broken up. 

The deal comes a week after the judge in the case retracted the class status granted in the case. Similar to the 2022 Play Store settlement, this latest deal will take another antitrust case off of Google’s several pending cases. It won’t touch the other two that are still on the docket alleging abuses of Google’s search power and advertising arm.