Report from EuroNews
In Brief – Sweden’s Patent and Market Court has ruled in the antitrust damages case between comparison shopping site PriceRunner, which is owned by Sweden-based fintech company Klarna, and Google, ordering the US giant to pay 14.3 billion Swedish kronor (€1.7bn) for harm suffered as the tech giant illegally promoted its price-comparison tool in search results at the expense of rivals. The award is one of the largest of its kind in Sweden. Despite the award falling short of the 80 billion kronor (€7.2bn) PriceRunner had sought, Klarna welcomed the decision. The decision built on 2017 findings in the European Commission’s Google Shopping case that the search giant abused its dominance in online search by giving advantage to its own comparison-shopping service. That decision was upheld by the EU’s highest court in 2024. PriceRunner filed its damages claim in 2022, arguing it suffered harm for more than a decade. Google is expected to challenge the Swedish court’s ruling and has argued that it changed its search results in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s requirements.
Context – Google’s string of losses in antitrust cases is leading to “follow-on” civil antitrust lawsuits from plaintiffs looking to win damage awards. Klarna’s lawsuit is just one of dozens by online comparison-shopping sites looking to build on the Commission’s Google Shopping decision. In the US, Yelp is similarly trying to build on Judge Amit Mehta’s landmark 2024 ruling that Google’s general search service is a monopoly under US antitrust law. Google’s losses in AdTech antitrust cases is creating a similar situation. A French court recently ordered Google to pay 126 million euros to several media groups for anticompetitive practices in online advertising that builds on last September’s ruling from the EU Commission that Google abused its dominance in the AdTech sector. Index Exchange, a Canada-based AdTech firm, is pursuing similar litigation in US court to win damages based on US District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s April 2025 ruling that Google exercised monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.