GOOGLE OVERTURNING GONGS* : PRECIS

 

LUXEMBOURG : Last-Ditch Effort : Google tries to overturn $2.6 billion fine.

Alphabet's Google last Tuesday made a last-ditch effort at Europe's top court to overturn a 2.42-billion-euro [ $2.6 billion ] EU antitrust fine imposed for market abuse related to its shopping service, saying that regulators failed to show that its practices were anti-competitive.

Google turned to the Court of Justice of the European Union [CJEU] after the General Court in 2021 threw out its challenge to the fine levied by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager in 2017.

It was the first of three penalties for anti-competitive practices that have cost Google 8.25 billion euros in total in the last decade.

Google lawyer Thomas Graf said the European Commission had failed to show that the company's different treatment of rivals was abusive and that different treatment alone was not anti-competitive. [Reuters]