Google has been ordered to pay just over £1bn in damages to a Klarna owned price comparison site, PriceRunner, for unlawfully favouring its own services in search.
The Swedish Patent and Market Court has ordered Google to pay SEK14.3 billion Swedish kronor plus interest – equivalent to £1bn.
The court found Klarna’s fintech company, PriceRunner, suffered harm as Google’s search service illegally promoted its own price-comparison tool at the expense of its rivals.
The court outlined the “unlawful favouring” of Google’s own services damaged PriceRunner. Klarna welcomed the decision, although told stakeholders that this figure falls short of what PriceRunner had looked to get from the company.
PriceRunner claimed around SEK80 billion (roughly £6.2bn) in damages, meaning the court dismissed the majority of the claim.
“This ruling supports a healthier, more competitive market for the way people compare products and services,” Klarna spokesman Dan Greaves told the Wall Street Journal.
Google has invested heavily into financial services, looking to integrate payments into its digital infrastructure – which can be seen in the development of Google Pay and Google Plex: payments and digital account systems that offer basic baking features for users.
This ruling is the latest in a series of antitrust decisions that have fallen against the tech giant. Last week, Google lost another antitrust case, and now faces a €4.1bn fine after it was determined the firm blocked companies from using rival Android systems by forciing phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser, and the Play app.
Google has so far amassed almost €11bn in EU fines in the last decade for a slew of antitrust infringements under the Digital Markets Act – and the regulator is not showing any indication of letting go.
