In 2017, the European Commission ordered Google to pay $ 2.42 billion for abuse of a dominant position with the price comparison of your search engine. This sanction, which had set a record at the time (in 2018, there was a historic fine of 4,340 million dollars), had been the subject of an appeal by the American giant. And today, finally, the result of the appeal has been formalized.
In the resolution published by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the judges confirm that Google has abused its dominant position by focus on their own services price comparison. And, as such, he maintains the obligation to pay the fine of 2,400 million dollars.
There has been abuse of a dominant position
We go back to June 2017: the European Commission announced a historic fine of 2.42 billion dollars to Google for abuse of dominant position in the Internet search market. With that, a conviction was ultimately passed on the charges the European Union brought against Google more than two years earlier.
At the head of that sentence was, once again, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who accused Google of having acted against the European Union’s antitrust rules and of having abused “its market dominance as a search engine via promote your own shopping comparison service in your search results, and downgrade those of your competition. “
Google’s reaction was immediate: it claimed to disagree with these findings and appealed against the sentence. More than four years have passed since that and now, finally, we know the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which dismissed the appeal brought by Google and Alphabet.
#EUGeneralShort largely rejects @Google action against @EU_Commission decision noting an abuse of a dominant position on its part by favoring its own price comparison service and confirms the fine of 2.42 billion dollars @Alphabetinc https://t.co/ATb3CgbPxg
– Court of Justice of the EU (@EUCourtPress) November 10, 2021
The CJEU understands that “Google has favored its own comparison service over the competition, instead of giving the best results”. And, therefore, it maintains the fine imposed by the Commission, so that Google will have to finally pay the 2,420 million dollars, of which 523 million payable by the parent company.
Google reacted to the decision by saying that “this opinion relates to very specific facts and, although we will be examining it in detail, we have already made changes in 2017. comply with the decision of the European Commission. These changes worked successfully, generating 1 billion clicks for over 700 comparison shopping services. “
More information | CURIA
