First record conviction in Sweden for abuse of Google’s dominant position to the detriment of a local competitor in the price comparison market.
A Swedish court on Wednesday ordered Google to pay 14.3 billion crowns (1.3 billion euros) to the price comparison site Pricerunner, owned by the Swedish financial services group Klarna, the American giant having illegally promoted its own price search service. This amount is significantly lower than the approximately 7 billion euros requested by the Swedish group.
A recognized abuse of dominant position
The Stockholm Patent and Competition Court ruled that “Pricerunner is considered to have suffered harm because Google has, for many years, illegally promoted its own price comparison service.” According to the decision press release, the court ruled in favor of Pricerunner “to the extent that the abuse committed by Google continued longer than Google had claimed, and this abuse caused damage to Pricerunner.”
This abuse consisted of Google placing its own price comparison service on its general search results page in a more advantageous manner than those of its competitors, the Swedish court recalled. Traffic from Google’s general search results page to its competitors’ comparison shopping services has therefore decreased, while it has increased to Google’s, he adds.
“Although Pricerunner did not succeed on all of its claims,” this amount of damages “is undoubtedly the highest ever awarded in a competition case in Sweden,” said judge Linda Kullberg, quoted in the press release reporting on the decision.
Pricerunner initially claimed around 22 billion crowns (2 billion euros) but said it expected “the final amount of damages linked to the lawsuits to be significantly higher”, given that “the violation is still ongoing”. Pricerunner obtains compensation for almost 15 years of damage in the United Kingdom and just over ten years in Sweden and Denmark.
The Swedish company went to court in 2022, following a ruling by the General Court of the European Union establishing that the American giant had “infringed EU competition law by manipulating search results in favor of its own price comparison services”. The General Court of the European Union in 2021 confirmed a decision by the European Commission dating from 2017, according to which “Google infringed competition law by favoring its own online shopping service”.
Pricerunner had argued in court that the changes Google implemented in 2017 were “primarily cosmetic.”
Reactions of the parties
Klarna welcomed a “decision (which) promotes a healthier and more competitive market when it comes to comparing products and services – and that is a good thing for all consumers,” reacted Dan Greaves, head of communications and institutional affairs for the group, quoted in a press release.
Google “does not agree with the court’s decision” and is examining the possibilities of appeal, said a spokesperson for the American giant in a message, affirming that “the modifications made” to its service in 2017 “are bearing fruit”.
This trial is also a fight “for consumers who have suffered enormously from Google’s violation of competition law over the last 14 years and still today”, estimated Mikael Lindahl, then director of Pricerunner.
