Google Challenges EU’s €2.4 Billion Penalty for Shopping Service Alleged Violation
The legal team of the European Union responded to Google’s attempt to dismiss a €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) fine for showing bias towards its own shopping services. They argued before the top court of the bloc that the crux of the case revolves around determining whom to place greater trust in.
A unit of Alphabet Inc. is appealing a 2021 ruling by a lower EU court that upheld a European Commission ruling that the company violated competition rules by favoring its own shopping service over its rivals. It was forced to change the way it displays shopping search results, potentially helping competitors grab some of the valuable ad space on search pages.
But in ending a debate between the weeds about which legal test should have been the right one in this case and the Brussels-based commission’s understanding of competition, the regulator’s lawyer, Fernando Castillo de la Torre, reminded the court that it has been overseeing enforcement. competition law for decades.
“You have to decide whether you want to entrust competition enforcement to Google or to the Commission,” he told the EU court hearing. “Google’s actions in this case paid off” and “changed the fortunes of its own service,” while “the fortunes of competing services turned in the exact opposite direction,” he told the court.
In the past, Google has argued that it cannot be expected to treat its competitors the same way it treats its own business. The 2017 penalty — at the time a record for the bloc’s antitrust watchdog — was the first in a series of high-profile cases in which the commission sought to crack down on the dominance of Silicon Valley companies in the region.
“Companies don’t compete by treating competitors as equals with themselves,” said Thomas Graf, Google’s legal counsel. “The purpose of the competition is for the company to stand out from its competitors. Not aligning with the competition so that everyone is the same.”
The EU purchase fine was part of a trio of decisions that set the tone for EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s bid to split the power of a handful of companies, including Apple Inc and Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook. Vestager’s team has fined Google a total of 8.3 billion euros, including abuses of its dominant position in the mobile operating system and display advertising, all of which the company appeals.
Vestager is currently on leave from an anti-competitive position while applying for the position of President of the European Investment Bank.
Google’s legal battle continues amid a pending EU investigation into the company’s alleged crackdown on digital advertising, as well as the risk of new legal remedies and ahead of possible new anti-rules on the bloc’s digital markets, which will give regulators new powers to force tech companies to make significant changes to the way they do business in the block.
The next step in Tuesday’s case is a non-binding opinion from one of the Supreme Court’s advisers on January 11.
