The ruling brings to an end a battle that began in 2017 in which the European Commission said Google was abusing its dominance.
Seven years after it was first issued, Google has lost its appeal against a €2.4bn fine from the EU.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) upheld the fine today (10 September), stating that the General Court of the European Union correctly established that Google’s conduct was discriminatory.
In 2017, the European Commission imposed a fine of €2.42bn on Google for having abused its dominant position in several national online search markets and giving what the Commission said was an “illegal advantage” to its own comparison-shopping service.
Google and its parent company Alphabet lodged an appeal with the EU’s General Court, the bloc’s second-highest court, but this appeal was dismissed by the court.
Today’s verdict from the CJEU upholds the judgment of the General Court and brings to an end one of many battles the search giant has had with the European Union over the years.
In a statement sent to SiliconRepublic.com, a spokesperson for Google said the company is disappointed with the decision. “This judgment relates to a very specific set of facts. We made changes back in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision,” they said.
“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”
These changes included allowing price comparison rivals to bid for advertising space at the top of a search page and publishing progress reports to the Commission. These changes were noted by competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager back in 2018 who said the Commission was seeing improvements with Google.
While today’s ruling relates to an old design for product ads rather than a reflection on current practices, the tech giant continues to face the wrath of regulators around the world.
Last week, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found that Google’s actions as a dominant player in adtech is harming advertisers and publishers and may have broken competition law.
And last month, a major US ruling declared Google to be a search monopoly, which could see the tech behemoth split up. Following the case, review platform Yelp accused the company of manipulating results to promote its own local search offerings.
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