Google has suffered a new setback in European justice. The Advocate General of the EU has supported the sanction of 2,424.5 million that the European Commission imposed on him for violating competition and that was already ratified by the General Court of the EU (TGEU) in November 2021. Now all that remains is for the highest body, the Court of Justice (CJEU), which most of the time tends to ratify the opinion issued by the Advocate General.
This fine on the technology giant is the third highest that the Commission has imposed for infringement of competition in a list in which Google stands out a lot. The Alphabet search engine also received the highest penalty in history, 4,342.8 million, for abuse of a dominant position, which was ratified in the TGUE and is awaiting the final ruling, and another of nearly 1,500 million. In addition, the American company has a file opened by the Competition Department that in the initial statement of objections demands the division of the company due to the great dominance it has in the digital advertising market and dominating all the links in the chain.
The specific case on which German lawyer Juliane Kolkott gave her opinion this Thursday is based on the Commission's decision to fine Google for violating competition in the Internet search market and favoring its own comparison service in the search engine. of products compared to those of other companies.
“This resulted in users clicking on the results of Google's product comparison services more often than those of competitors. The subsequent diversion of data traffic from the Google general results page was not due to a better quality of Google's product comparison service, but only to self-favoritism and the leverage effect generated by the Google general results page – that is, to the abusive exploitation of its dominant position in the market for general search services on the Internet,” states the statement from the European justice system regarding the opinion issued by Kolkott.
“The self-favoritism that Google is accused of constitutes an autonomous form of abuse through the application of unfair access conditions to competing product comparison services, presupposing that it produces at least potentially anti-competitive effects (such as those found the Commission)”, argues the lawyer, who concludes that given the type of abuse that, in her opinion, occurs, it is not necessary to apply “criteria to determine the existence of an abuse through the denial of access to an 'essential resource'” . Finally, Kolkott points out that Google used “self-favoritism” in its search engine to gain dominance over a market segment that it did not have and “give itself a competitive advantage.”
All this leads the EU Advocate General to support the decisions of the European Commission and the TGEU and ask the CJEU to do the same. The usual thing is that the highest general body of the Union follows the opinion – the technical name for these conclusions in the European judicial procedure – of the EU's general counsel. This is usually the case 80% of the time, according to those who are most in charge of the functioning of Community Justice. However, there are exceptions even in high-profile cases. The last -and recent- was that of UEFA and FIFA against the Euroleague soccer team. The ruling issued by the CJEU can be described as an amendment to the entire opinion of the advocate general, who in this case was not the German Kolkott but the Greek Athanasios Rantos.
Follow all the information Economy and Business in Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter
The Five Day agenda
The most important economic quotes of the day, with the keys and context to understand their scope.
RECEIVE IT IN YOUR EMAIL
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#lawyer #supports #sanction #billion #Google #violating #competition
