Google has lost its challenge to a heft EU fine over charges it illegally favored its own shopping network over those of rivals.
The EU Commission fined Google in 2017 for promoting its own shopping services over those of rivals, leveraging its dominance in the search market to do so. The Commission levied a whopping $2.7 billion fine on the company, which Google has spent the last seven years fighting.
According to Reuters, the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union has upheld a lower court ruling that validated the Commission’s fine of the search giant. As with most monopoly-regulation, the CJEU judges confirmed there was nothing wrong with having a hard-earned dominant position in the market, but it is illegal to abuse that position to the detriment of rivals.
“In particular, the conduct of undertakings in a dominant position that has the effect of hindering competition on the merits and is thus likely to cause harm to individual undertakings and consumers is prohibited,” they said.
The CJEU’s decision is the latest legal setback for Google, with the company recently losing its antitrust case in the US. The judge presiding over that case intends to announce his decision regarding punitive measures next summer, but experts say the company could face everything from being banned from making exclusionary deals to a possible breakup of its core businesses.