News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch made a personal plea to Google boss Sundar Pichai to remove a ban on an Australian technology start-up he backed, with newly tabled legal claims documenting that the tech boss refused and declared Google would take its chances in court.

The revelations are included in a filing to a Californian District Court, in a long-running stoush between Australian tech entrepreneur Matt Berriman and Google, which Mr Berriman hopes to show acted in an anti-competitive manner by banning his company Unlockd’s app from its platforms and, in effect, killing the company.