Sawt Falasteen - Swedish court orders Google pay $1.46 bn for favouring its price comparisons

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

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 did not fully succeed with its case".

"In many ways, it is a complex and extensive case and the damages awarded are, despite Pricerunner not having succeeded fully with its claim, without doubt the largest ever decided in a Swedish competition case," judge Linda Kullberg said in a statement.

Pricerunner had requested damages totalling 64 billion kronor and an additional 14 billion kronor 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."

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 European Union 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.

- 'Mostly cosmetic' -

Originally, Pricerunner said it was suing Google for around $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 European Union 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.

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 a longer period than Google has claimed, and that the abuse caused damage to Pricerunner."

However, it said that part of the claim had been brought too late and it was also not awarding Pricerunner any compensation for "residual damages" after the abuse stopped.

It added that the damages awarded for the period Google was deemed at fault -- 15 years in the UK and 10 years in Sweden and Denmark -- was also lower than what Pricerunner had requested.

W.AbuLaban--SF-PST