Google Awaits EU Court Verdict In Anti-trust Case

Brussels, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Nov, 2021 ) :The European Union's second-highest court will rule Wednesday on whether antitrust authorities in Brussels went too far in handing Google a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.8-billion) fine for search engine dominance.

The decision by the Luxembourg-based General Court could undo or demand modifications to the landmark decision, taken by the European Commission in 2017.

The verdict on Wednesday centres on Google's shopping service and is one of three cases against the search engine giant currently moving through the EU's drawn-out appeals system.

At the time, the fine was the EU's biggest ever. But it was later exceeded by a 4.3-billion-euro fine against Google over Android, the company's smartphone operating system.

As it lodged its appeal, Google argued the EU was "wrong on the law, the facts, and the economics" in the search engine case.

The decision by the General Court is not necessarily the end of the story as both sides can later turn to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice, for a final say.

A Google victory would be a rebuke to the EU's antitrust supremo Margrethe Vestager, who burst onto the scene in Brussels by scrapping her predecessor's more conciliatory approach to the US tech titan.

Vestager lost in the same court in a major case against Apple and Ireland, in which her teams had ordered the iPhone maker to repay 13 billion Euros plus interest to the Irish taxpayer. The EU has appealed the court's ruling.

The shopping fine for Google came after seven years of investigation launched by complaints from other price-comparison services that saw traffic plummet against the tech giant's own version, Google Shopping.

If the Luxembourg court upholds the decision, experts believe that Google's similar forays into vacation rentals and job ads could be next in the EU commission's firing line.