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In an important decision that supports the European Union’s efforts to put pressure on the world’s biggest technology companies, Google On Wednesday, it lost an appeal by European regulators to overturn a landmark antitrust ruling against the internet giant.
Decision of the Luxembourg-based General Court on a case 2017 decision Google was fined 2.4 billion euros (about $2.8 billion) by the bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, for giving preferential treatment to its price comparison shopping service compared to competing services.
The penalty was the first of three penalties imposed by him. margrethe vestager, the European Commission’s top antitrust enforcer against Google. And other cases are also being appealed and additional European investigations are pending against them. Amazon, Apple and Facebook – the case was watched closely as a sign of the court’s view on the European Commission’s aggressive use of antitrust law against American tech giants.
Google may object decision to the European Court of Justice, the highest court in the European Union.
Amid growing support for regulation of major tech platforms in the United States and the European Union, courts will play a central role in determining how far governments can go in intervening in the digital economy. In the United States, Google Ministry of Justice case anti-competitive behavior and Facebook He’s facing another from the Federal Trade Commission.
Courts in Europe have sometimes ruled against regulators. Last year, The General Court ruled against a decision Demanding Apple to pay 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes. Amazon also successfully disputed another order to reimburse taxes.
In its 2017 lawsuit against Google, regulators said the internet giant used its dominance as a search engine to help its own internet shopping service unfairly over its smaller rivals.
The €2.4 billion fine was a record before it was surpassed in 2018, when the commission fined Google €4.34 billion for illegally using the Android operating system to support the use of its search engine and other services on mobile devices.
In 2019, Ms. Vestager’s office fined Google €1.49 billion for imposing unfair terms on companies using the search bar on websites in Europe.
Google’s research has inspired new stricter competition rules in preparation in the European Union targeting the world’s largest technology platforms. The draft law (the Digital Markets Act) is expected to be passed next year and will give European regulators new powers to intervene in the digital economy, including by preventing companies like Google and Apple from giving their services preferential treatment over their competitors.
Violation of the new rules will result in a fine of up to 10 percent of a company’s annual revenue.
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