Google has suffered a setback in its bid to overturn a US$2.7bn fine it received from the European Commission seven years ago.
The commission is discovering it is one thing to issue fines to the tech giants for antitrust and other trading contraventions; it can take years to collect the money.
The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, fined Google US$2.7bn in 2017 for running a price comparison shopping service that unfairly directed shoppers to Google’s own services ahead of services offered by EU companies.
Instead of paying up, the Alphabet-owned Google decided to litigate the fine. The issue is now before the Court of Justice in the European Union, which is Europe’s top court.
The outcome looks less likely to favour Google with Juliane Kokott, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice, recommending that the court uphold the fine.
“Google, as found by the Commission and confirmed by the General Court, was leveraging its dominant position on the market for general search services to favour its own comparison shopping service by favouring the display of its result, the Court said in a statement.
There could be another twist in this case with the executive vice president of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, due to meet Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichal and other big tech leaders in the US this week to discuss competition and digital issues, according to a report by CNN Business.
The big tech firms may use the opportunity to argue that they have made improvements to their operations, to mitigate some of the outstanding fines.
Google is also challenging EU rulings on two other antitrust cases. One is that it abused its dominant position in the Android mobile platform to strengthen and expand its position. The EC has also fined Google for preventing third parties from using its Adsense advertising service.
It’s not just the European Commission that’s going after Google. It also faces three recently filed anti-trust lawsuits in the US.
