Google loses EU court’s latest appeal against $2.7 billion fine in antitrust case over shopping

LONDON — Google lost its final legal challenge Tuesday to a European Union fine for giving its shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over competitors in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that involved a hefty fine.

The Court of Justice of the European Union upheld a lower court’s decision, rejecting the company’s appeal against a 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) fine imposed by the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s main antitrust enforcer.

“With today’s judgment, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeal and thus upholds the judgment of the Court of First Instance,” the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commission’s original 2017 decision accused the Silicon Valley giant of unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-dollar fines the commission levied against Google in the past decade as Brussels began to tighten its crackdown on the tech industry.

Google made changes to comply with the commission’s ruling that required equal treatment of competitors. The company began hosting auctions for shopping search listings, which it bid on alongside other comparison shopping services.

At the same time, the company appealed the decision to the court. However, the General Court of the European Union, the lower chamber of the tribunal, dismissed its appeal in 2021, and the ECJ’s advisor later recommended that the appeal be dismissed.

European consumer organisation BEUC welcomed the court’s decision, saying it showed that EU competition law “still has a huge impact” on digital markets.

“Google harmed millions of European consumers by making competing price comparison sites virtually invisible,” said CEO Agustín Reyna. “Google’s illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing potentially lower prices and useful product information from competing price comparison sites for everything from clothes to washing machines.”

Google is still appealing the two remaining EU antitrust fines, which concerned its Android mobile operating system and its AdSense advertising platform. The company suffered a defeat in the Android case when the General Court of the European Union upheld the €4.125 billion fine imposed by the Commission in a 2022 decision. Its original appeal against the €1.49 billion fine in the AdSense case has not yet been ruled on.

The three cases heralded increased efforts by regulators around the world to crack down on the tech industry. Since then, the EU has launched more investigations into big tech companies and crafted new laws to clean up social media platforms and regulate artificial intelligence.

Google is now facing particular pressure over its lucrative digital advertising business. In a federal antitrust trial that began Monday, the U.S. Justice Department alleges the company has a monopoly in the “advertising technology” industry.

British competition watchdogs last week accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology market, while the EU is conducting its own investigation.