Google loses fight against $2.7 billion antitrust fine in EU court

The Court of Justice of the European Union on Tuesday upheld a €2.4 billion antitrust fine against Google. This is stated in the court’s decision.

The EU Court of Justice declared that Google’s discriminatory practice of favoring its own search results over those of rival services was unappealing.

“ECJ upholds the fine of €2.4 billion imposed on Google for abuse of its dominant position by favouring its own comparison shopping service competition,” the statement said.

The judges noted that EU law prohibits behaviour that prevents “the maintenance or increase of competition in a market where the degree of competition is already weakened, precisely because of the presence of one or more undertakings in a dominant position.”.

Google faced a fine in 2017 for favoring its own shopping search results over those of competing services. This fine was the first in a series of EU antitrust investigations, including an investigation into advertising technologies.
Google is still appealing two other EU fines, including a record €4.3 billion antitrust fine for the Google Android operating system.

Last year, the EU General Court upheld the EU’s decision on the Google Shopping platform, strongly suggesting that Google was favouring its own services.

The European Commission has a powerful tool to fight digital giants: the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which prohibits tech giants from favouring their own products and services over competitors on their own platforms.
This year, Google made further changes to its product search to comply with the DMA.