Swedish court ordered the Google to pay about $1.5 billion to PriceRunner, a price comparison company owned by Klarna.
The amount relates to compensation for breach of antitrust legislation.
Compensation, about 14.3 billion in Swedish krones, comes amid increasing control of American technology companies in Europe.
This is the largest amount of compensation that a Swedish court has awarded in a competition case, although much less than the 78 billion kronors that PriceRunner had requested, including accrued interest.
Google is invited to pay $1.5 billion to a company owned by Klarna
«Compensation, although PriceRunner did not achieve absolute success with her lawsuit, is undoubtedly the largest in a Swedish competition case», said court official Linda Coolberg.
PriceRunner sued Google in 2022, asking about 2.1 billion euros in damages, claiming that the American giant was manipulating search results. Three months earlier, Google had lost an appeal against a fine of EUR 2.42 billion imposed on it by the EU for violating antitrust legislation in 2017, for giving its own purchasing price comparison service an unfair advantage over smaller European competitors.
A Google spokesman said the company had made changes to its market ads since 2017, which have been working well and support jobs and development for price comparison services.
«We don't agree with the court's decision, we examine it and we'll think about our legal options.», stressed the representative of the American Colossus.
PriceRunner, which was acquired by Swedish Klarna in 2022, requested compensation for the profits she has, according to her, lost in Britain since 2008 and Sweden and Denmark since 2013.
While Klarna welcomed the court decision, this is effective.
Information from Reuters
