The Court of Justice of the European Union (EuG) ruled in November that Google must pay a fine of 2.4 billion euros in the cartel dispute with the EU Commission over the illegal preferential treatment of its own price comparison service in the search engine. The US group has now announced an appeal against this judgment and now wants to bring the Commission’s decision before the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
“After careful consideration, we have decided to appeal the court’s decision,” a Google spokesman said on Thursday. There are still areas that require further legal clarification by the ECJ. Regardless of this step, the company continues to invest “in our remedial measures, which have been working successfully for several years”. You will “continue to work constructively” with the Commission.
Google discriminates against the competition
The Commission imposed the fine on the search engine giant in 2017 after a seven-year antitrust investigation. She had previously received complaints from price comparison portals. Google has placed its own corresponding service at the top of the search results and at the same time downgraded the competition, the Commission justified its decision. In doing so, the group abused its dominant position. The CJEU essentially confirmed this and also saw competition as weakened.
Proceedings between Google and the Commission about a record fine of more than 4.3 billion euros imposed in 2018 are also currently pending before the CJEU. The group is said to have used its Android mobile operating system to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine and to hinder innovations from third parties. Another lawsuit is about a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros for abusing a dominant position in the online advertising market. Overall, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has imposed antitrust fines of around 8.25 billion euros on Google.
(vbr)