European Court of Justice upholds Google Shopping Abuse Decision

 

European Court of Justice upholds Google Shopping Abuse Decision

The European Court of Justice has dismissed the appeal by Google LLC and Alphabet Inc (Google) against the General Court's judgment that largely rejected Google's appeal against a European Commission's decision that Goggle had abused its dominant position by giving preference to its own search engines and imposing a fine of EUR 2.4 billion.

The appeal relates to a decision in 2017.  The Commission found that Google had abused its dominant position on the market for online general search services in 13 countries in the EEA by favouring its own comparison shopping service over competing services.

The General Court rejected Google's arguments that its actions amounted to competition on the merits.

The ECJ held that the General Court did not err in its consideration of the Bronner criteria that apply in essential facilities cases and in concluding that this was not a case in which the Bronner criteria were applicable.

The ECJ also found that the General Court had not erred in finding that Google's practices deviated from competition on the merits.

Further, the ECJ found that the General Court had not erred in dismissing Google's arguments in relation to the application of the "as-efficient-competitor" test.

The original decision was a landmark development in the application of EU competition law, not only to Big Tech companies but also on the scope of Article 102 TFEU to deal with a dominant company favouring its own operations. Now, almost a decade later, the ECJ has provided useful guidance and clarified that the competition authority can “rely on a range of evidence, without being required systematically to use any single tool” to prove its case.

Case C-48/22) Google LLC and Alphabet, Inc v European Commission EU:C:2024:726