Google has lost a seven-year battle with the European Commission as the EU’s highest court accepted a $2.7 billion antitrust fine against the search giant, Reuters report. Antitrust regulators originally fined Google in 2017 for favoring its shopping service against local competitors.
“Google’s strategy for its comparison shopping service was not just to attract customers by making its product better than its competitors,” EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager said at the time. “Instead, Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and undermining those of competitors.”
Google lost its first decision in a lower court in 2021, sending an appeal to the Luxembourg Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The company argued that it was being penalized for its dominant position in the market and that the original decision “erred in law by treating quality improvement… as abusive.”
However, the judges of the CJEU agreed with the lower court’s decision that the company is allowed to have a position but not abuse it. “In particular, the performance of duties in a superior position that has the effect of preventing fair competition and may cause harm to individuals and consumers is prohibited,” they noted.
Google is also fighting a legal battle in the EU that could force it to sell parts of its adtech businesses over similar arguments that it favors its services over those of its competitors. The EU Commission has previously found that since Google is unlikely to change its behavior, only the “compulsory separation” of part of its services can address competition issues. In total, Google has racked up 8.25 billion euros ($9.12 billion) in EU antitrust fines over the past decade.
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