Alphabet unit Google suffered a loss on Wednesday when Europe’s second-highest court dismissed its challenge to an EU antitrust ruling and a 2.42 billion euro ($2.8 billion) penalty, a huge victory for EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager. In 2017, Vestager sanctioned the world’s most popular internet search engine for favoring its own price-comparison shopping service, giving it an unfair edge over smaller European rivals.
The shopping case was the first of three decisions that have resulted in a total of 8.25 billion euros in EU antitrust fines for Google over the previous decade. Vestager then went after Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, with investigations still ongoing.
“The General Court largely dismisses Google’s action against the decision of the Commission finding that Google abused its dominant position by favoring its own comparison shopping service over competing comparison shopping services,” the Court said.
Google can appeal to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), Europe’s top court, on points of law.