Apple’s prime deal maker on Tuesday defended his firm’s favoritism of Google on iPhones, a pivotal collaboration that has formed the fashionable tech trade and is on the middle of a federal antitrust trial in opposition to the search large.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vp of companies, testified in Washington that Google’s placement because the default search choice on the Safari browser throughout Apple units was motivated by high quality.

“I didn’t assume on the time, or in the present day, that there was anyone on the market who’s anyplace close to pretty much as good as Google at looking out,” stated Mr. Cue, who was known as to testify by the Justice Division. “Definitely there wasn’t a sound different.”

The Justice Division has accused Google of illegally locking in its monopoly via offers to make its search choice the default on Apple, Samsung, Firefox and different platforms. These partnerships squashed rivals that struggled to get their merchandise in entrance of customers, the Justice Division argues.

The Justice Division and dozens of states that introduced the lawsuit argue that Google used the default offers as a “highly effective strategic weapon” to dam rivals and lock in its dominance within the search market.

No different deal has been as important to the federal government’s case as a two-decades-long partnership between Google and Apple. The partnership has been price $10 billion a yr for Apple, which makes up greater than 50 p.c of the smartphone market in america, in keeping with Counterpoint Analysis, a expertise agency.

Mr. Cue’s testimony has been extremely anticipated. Whereas the case is concentrated on Google, the Justice Division has considered Apple as a secondary participant and the foremost instance of how Google has used its deep pockets to take care of its energy over the worldwide search market. Ought to the decide rule within the authorities’s favor, it might value Google and Apple billions of {dollars}.

The trial is the primary monopolization case introduced by the federal government in additional than twenty years, a part of a crackdown on large tech by regulators appointed by President Biden. On Tuesday, the Federal Commerce Fee filed a lawsuit in opposition to Amazon, accusing it of illegally defending a monopoly over swaths of on-line retail by squeezing retailers and favoring its personal companies.

The Justice Division can also be suing Google for illegally monopolizing the advert tech market. And the F.T.C. is suing Meta for utilizing its dominance in social media to kill off competitors.

The U.S. authorities’s case in opposition to Google promised to elevate a veil off blockbuster offers between probably the most highly effective international corporations, giving the general public a uncommon glimpse into enterprise offers which have decided how customers entry data on-line.

Apple and Google started their partnership in search in 2002. In 2016, Mr. Cue took over renegotiations of the deal. The 30-plus-year Apple veteran had risen to be the corporate’s prime deal maker, overseeing agreements with document labels for Apple Music, banks for Apple Pay and Hollywood studios for Apple TV+.

In 2016, Mr. Cue met with Sundar Pichai, who was then a yr into his function as Google’s chief government, to renegotiate for the next proportion from their revenue-sharing association.

Regardless of some backwards and forwards on monetary phrases of a brand new deal, Mr. Cue stated negotiations had been by no means examined to the purpose that the businesses would again down from their association.

“It was in Google’s greatest curiosity and our greatest curiosity to get the deal achieved,” Mr. Cue stated, including that the corporate had by no means thought-about creating its personal search engine to compete with Google.

“We offered nice prospects to Google — they did a tremendous job on the search engine facet,” he stated.

The Justice Division disclosed in questioning that the deal in 2016 additionally included a provision for the businesses to defend the settlement ought to it come beneath any regulatory challenges. Mr. Cue stated that the supply was written in by attorneys for Apple and Google, and that he believed it pertained to an antitrust investigation within the European Union of Google.

However few different particulars had been revealed in Mr. Cue’s testimony. A lot of the trial, which is anticipated to final till November, has been held in closed periods and most reveals have been sealed. Mr. Cue testified for about 4 hours, of which greater than half was closed to the general public.

Apple fought in opposition to the testimony of executives, saying that Mr. Cue and others had already been deposed forward of the listening to and that enterprise contracts beneath scrutiny had been extremely delicate.