Swedish court orders Google to pay nearly US$2bil for favouring its price comparisons

STOCKHOLM: A Swedish market court on Wednesday ordered Google to pay some kr14.3 billion (US$1.46 billion) in damages, plus interest, to price comparison site Pricerunner for promoting its own shopping comparisons in search results.

The Patent and Market Court in Stockholm said “Pricerunner is deemed to have suffered damage as a result of Google having, for many years, unlawfully favoured its own price comparison service.”

The case concerns Sweden, Denmark and the UK and the court said it had ordered Google to pay “just over” kr1 billion Swedish, kr675 million (US$103 million) and £950 million (US$1.26 billion) as well as “accrued interest” amounting to approximately kr400 million, kr250 million and £300 million.

The court noted that Pricerunner, which filed a lawsuit in 2022 and has since been acquired by fintech giant Klarna, had requested “significantly higher damages, but was not entirely successful in its claim”.

“In many ways, this is a complex and wide-ranging case, and although Pricerunner has not been entirely successful in its claim, the damages awarded are undoubtedly the largest ever ordered in a Swedish competition case,” judge Linda Kullberg said in a statement.

Pricerunner had requested damages totalling kr64 billion and an additional kr14 billion in interest.

Dan Greaves, head of communications and policy at Klarna, said the ruling “supports a healthier, more competitive market for the way people compare products and services – and that is good for everyone who shops”.

Antitrust laws 

A Google spokesman meanwhile told AFP: “We don’t agree with the court’s decision, we are reviewing and will consider our legal options. The changes we made to shopping ads back in 2017 are working successfully”.

Pricerunner filed its suit following a EU General Court ruling that Google “breached EU antitrust laws by manipulating search results in favour of their own comparison shopping services”.

The trial began in October last year, and a ruling was first scheduled for April 15 but was delayed several times due to the complexity of the case.

Originally, Pricerunner said it was suing Google for around US$2 billion but said at the time it expected the “final damages amount of the lawsuit to be significantly higher” given that “the violation is still ongoing”.

The EU General Court in 2021 upheld a 2017 European Commission ruling “that Google had violated competition law by favouring its own shopping service”.

The ruling was then upheld again in 2024 by the EU Court of Justice.

Continued abuse 

In the Swedish case, the court noted that Google had argued that the violation ended in 2017, while Pricerunner had argued that it continued after 2017 and up until at least 2023.

Pontus Scherp, the lawyer representing Pricerunner, told AFP ahead of Wednesday’s ruling that his team had argued that the changes Google implemented in 2017 were “mostly cosmetic”.

The court found that “Google’s abuse continued for longer than Google had claimed, and that the abuse caused Pricerunner harm”.

However, the court also said that part of the claim had been brought too late and it was also not awarding Pricerunner any compensation for “ongoing harm” after the abuse stopped.

“The judgment shows that competition law provides real protection for companies that suffer harm as a result of competition law infringements committed by dominant firms such as Google,” Scherp said in a comment after the ruling.

Scherp said he thought it should be “highlighted that the court found that Google never ceased its infringement” following the EU commission’s decision.

“The damages awarded for the period Google was deemed at fault – 15 years in the UK and 10 years in Sweden and Denmark – were also lower than what Pricerunner had requested,” he noted.