Swedish Price-Finding Site Sues Google for $2.4B Over Alleged Market Abuse
PriceRunner, a price-comparison site that operates in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, is suing Google for suppressing that business through unfair competition and seeking almost €2.1 billion in damages, roughly $2.4 billion.
The Stockholm-based firm's announcement cited a 2017 European Union ruling that found Google abused its search-market power and led to a €2.42 billion fine.
“In addition to Google’s violation of the competition law until 2017, PriceRunner believes that Google has not complied with the Commission’s decision but is still abusing its dominant position,” according to PriceRunner, which says Google's tactics cost it €2.1 billion in profits.
The release also says Google’s actions hurt shoppers, citing estimates from the accounting firm Grant Thornton that said Google’s comparison-shopping service showed prices that were 12-14% higher overall (16-37% higher in clothes and shoes) than at rival price-finding sites.
PriceRunner has not posted a copy of the lawsuit, filed in Sweden’s Patent and Market Court under the case number PMT1860-22. The court’s site does not yet appear to list anything about the case; company press rep Christine Gouldthorp said in an email that PriceRunner could not share the complaint’s text, citing “security reasons from the court.”
Google says it reformed the shopping-ads program after the 2017 case. A company statement quoted Frederic Abrard, director of its comparison shopping services ad service, as saying the program has been “generating growth and jobs for hundreds of comparison shopping services who operate more than 800 websites across Europe” and was “subject to intensive monitoring by the EU Commission and two sets of outside experts.”
In the statement,
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