By Mike Scarcella

July 17 (Reuters) - Google persuaded a judge on Thursday to delay a Texas jury trial over the technology giant’s digital advertising practices, as a court in Virginia prepares to rule on related antitrust claims lodged against the Alphabet GOOGL.O unit.

U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan in the federal court in Plano, Texas, in his ruling said it made sense to wait for a final judgment in the Virginia case to see whether and how it might narrow the issues in the lawsuit against Google in his court.

The Virginia judge, Leonie Brinkema, in April found Google liable for illegally monopolizing the markets for publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. Google has denied any wrongdoing, and said it will appeal.

The legal issues in the Virginia case — brought by the Justice Department and a group of U.S. states in 2023 — overlap the ones in Jordan’s court. Texas and more than a dozen other U.S. states in 2020 accused Google of illegally dominating advertising markets and violating laws against deceptive trade practices.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mark Lanier, a lead attorney for the Texas plaintiffs, in a statement on Thursday, said: “We remain ready for justice to happen for Texans and citizens of our other states. It just won’t come as soon as we hoped.”

Brinkema in September will begin a so-called remedies trial to determine what Google must do to restore competition to online advertising markets.

Texas and the other states had opposed Google's request to postpone the Plano trial.

In his order, Jordan said “there is every reason to anticipate that the resolution of the [Virginia] action will streamline the issues in this case.”

The Texas plaintiffs have estimated their trial will last more than four weeks. They have said they are seeking more than $100 billion in penalties, court papers show.

The case is State of Texas et al v. Google LLC, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 4:20-cv-00957-SDJ.

For plaintiffs: W. Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm; and Ashley Keller of Keller Postman

For defendant: Eric Mahr of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Daniel Bitton of Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider; and R. Paul Yetter of Yetter Coleman

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(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)