Google ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to PriceRunner in Swedish antitrust ruling

A Swedish court on Wednesday ordered Alphabet-owned Google to pay around $1.5 billion in damages to PriceRunner, a price comparison platform owned by Swedish payments company Klarna, in a landmark antitrust case.

The Patent and Market Court in Stockholm ruled that PriceRunner had suffered losses because Google had for years unfairly promoted its own price comparison service over rival platforms in search results.

“Pricerunner is considered to have suffered harm as a result of Google having, for many years, unlawfully favoured its own price comparison service,” the court said.

The compensation amount, roughly 14.3 billion Swedish kronor, marks the largest damages award ever issued by a Swedish court in a competition-related case. However, it remains significantly lower than the 78 billion kronor that PriceRunner had demanded, including interest.

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Court official Alderman Linda Kullberg said the award was still an unprecedented amount for a Swedish competition case, despite PriceRunner not receiving the full amount it sought.

PriceRunner filed the lawsuit against Google in 2022, claiming the company had manipulated search rankings to give its own shopping comparison service an unfair advantage.

The legal action came shortly after Google lost an appeal against a €2.42 billion fine imposed by the European Union in 2017. EU regulators had found that Google gave preferential treatment to its own shopping comparison service while disadvantaging smaller European competitors.

Google challenges ruling as scrutiny grows

Google said it disagreed with the Swedish court’s decision and was reviewing its legal options.

A company spokesperson said Google had introduced changes to its shopping advertising system since 2017 and argued that those adjustments had benefited comparison shopping services while supporting jobs and economic growth.

PriceRunner sought damages for lost profits from the UK market dating back to 2008, and from Sweden and Denmark from 2013 onwards.

Klarna, which acquired PriceRunner in 2022, welcomed the ruling but said the decision could still be appealed.

Following the announcement, Alphabet shares fell about 0.4% in US premarket trading, while Klarna shares gained around 7.5%.

The verdict comes as European regulators and courts continue increasing scrutiny of major U.S. technology companies over competition practices and the use of dominant market positions.

With inputs from agencies