Swedish Website Sues Google For $2.4 Billion Over Alleged Breach Of Anti-Trust Laws

Following an alleged breach of antitrust laws, a Swedish price comparison website, PriceRunner is suing Google for 2.1 billion euros ($2.4 billion).

The company alleged that Google manipulated search results in favor of its own competing shopping service.

In a statement, the Chief Executive Officer of PriceRunner, Mikael Lindahl revealed that Google breached antitrust laws by giving preference to its own shopping comparison product, Google Shopping, through its popular search engine.

“We are of course seeking compensation for the damage Google has caused us during many years, but are also seeing this lawsuit as a fight for consumers who have suffered tremendously from Google’s infringement of the competition law for the past fourteen years and still today.

“This is also a matter of survival for many European entrepreneurial companies and job opportunities within tech”, he said in the statement.

CNBC reports that the company, which in November agreed to be taken over by Swedish fintech firm Klarna, wants Google to pay compensation for profits it lost in the U.K. since 2008, and in Sweden and Denmark from 2013 onward.

In recent times, Google, an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, have been under fire for allegedly breaching its anti-trust laws.

Investors King gathered that Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) had earlier accused Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL)’s Google of breaching antitrust law related to suspending and blocking accounts on YouTube.

Also in 2021, about 36 US states and Washington DC filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant’s control over its Android app store violates antitrust laws.

A report by Business Standard revealed that the lawsuit alleges that through a series of exclusionary contracts and other anticompetitive conduct in the Google Play Store, Google deprived Android device users of robust competition that could lead to greater choice and innovation, as well as significantly lower prices for mobile apps.

The report also revealed that New York’s Attorney General James and the coalition co-led by the attorneys general of Utah, North Carolina, and Tennessee also accused Google of requiring app developers selling in-app digital content through apps purchased via Google’s Play Store to use Google Billing as a middleman, forcing app consumers to pay Google’s commission up to 30 percent indefinitely.