BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The Court of Justice of the European Union should uphold the European Commission’s 2.42 billion euro fine imposed on Google in 2017 for breaching EU competition rules, it said on Thursday the Advocate General of the CJEU.
The European executive had estimated that Google, a subsidiary of the American group Alphabet, was abusing its dominant position in the search engine market by conferring an illegal advantage to another of its products, its price comparison service.
The Advocate General, Juliane Kokott, said she had recommended to the judges of the CJEU to confirm this fine.
“(The Commission) concluded that Google exploited its dominant position in the general search market as a lever to favor its own product comparator in the market for specialized product search services, this advantage having led to a potential or actual exclusion of competition in this downstream market”, we can read in a press release from the European executive.
The judges, who generally follow these non-binding recommendations, will rule in the coming months. In 2021, another court, the General Court of the European Union, sided with the Commission.
Google said it was reviewing the opinion and awaiting the CJEU’s decision.
“Regardless of the appeal, we continue to invest in our solution, which has been operating successfully for several years, and we will continue to work constructively with the European Commission,” a spokesperson said.
Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, was due to meet Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, on Thursday to discuss competition and digital issues.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and Benoit Van Overstraeten, French version by Augustin Turpin, edited by Sophie Louet)
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