Alphabet’s Google made a last-ditch effort at Europe’s top court on Tuesday to overturn a 2.42 billion-euro European Union fine over market abuse related to its shopping service, saying regulators failed to show that the actions It is anti-competitive.
After the General Court in 2021 rejected Google’s challenge to the fine imposed by the European Union’s antitrust chief Margaret Vestager in 2017, the company turned to the European Court of Justice.
It was the first of three fines for anti-competitive practices that have cost Google a total of €8.25 billion over the past decade.
Thomas Graf, Google’s lawyer, said the European Commission had failed to show that the company’s different treatment from competitors was abusive and that the different treatment alone was not anti-competitive.
He stated: “Companies compete by behaving differently than their competitors. The whole purpose of competition is to differentiate a company from others. Not to coordinate with the competitors so that everyone is the same.”
Commission lawyer Fernando Castillo de la Torre rejected Google’s arguments, saying the company used its algorithms to unfairly favor its shopping and price comparison services, which violates EU antitrust rules.
“Google had the right to apply algorithms to reduce the visibility of some of the less interesting results, and what Google did not have the right to do was to use its dominance of public search to improve the results of its services,” he said. And decorate them with attractive features to show their position higher than competitors.
The Court of Justice of the European Union will announce its ruling in this regard in the coming months.
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