Google Files Final Appeal At EU Court To Cancel Cartel Fines

Advocate General CJEU, Juliane Kokott, will give his non-binding opinion (photo: Twitter @ruppe_p)

JAKARTA-Alphabet Inc., parent of Google, on Tuesday 19 September made their last attempt in Europe's highest court to cancel a fine of EU cartels of 2.42 billion euros (Rp39.9 trillion). The fine was imposed for market abuse related to shopping services, saying regulators failed to show that the practice was anti-competition.

Google turned to the European Union Justice Court (CJEU) after the General Court in 2021 rejected the challenge of a fine imposed by the EU's chief cartel, Margrethe Vestager, in 2017.

This is the first fine of three fines for anti-competition practices that have spent a total of 8.25 billion euros (Rp135.5 trillion) on Google in the past decade.

Google's lawyer, Thomas Graf, said that the European Commission failed to show that the company's different treatment of its competitors was abuse. He also said that the different treatment was not anti-competition.

"Companies do not compete by treating competitors the same as themselves. They compete by treating them differently. The essence of competition is so that companies can distinguish themselves from competitors. Not by aligning themselves with competitors so that everything becomes the same," he told the panel of 15 judges.

"The qualification of each treatment is different, and especially the different treatment between the business of the first party and third party, as abuse will undermine competition. This will reduce the company's ability and incentives to compete and innovate," said Graf.

Commission's attorney, Fernando Castillo de la Torre, rejected Google's argument, saying the company had used its algorithm to provide unfair treatment of its shopping price comparison services, which violated EU cartel law.

"Google has the right to apply algorithms that reduce visibility from certain search results that are less relevant to user requests," he said.

"What Google does not have the right to do is to use its dominance in public searches to expand its position in the comparison of spending by promoting the outcome of its own services, and beautify it with interesting features and apply algorithms that tend to suppress competitors' results and display these results without attractive features," he said.

CJEU advocate General Juliane Kokott said he would give his non-binding opinion on January 11. CJEU will give a verdict in the coming months after its recommendation.

The case and two other cases involving the Android mobile operating system and AdSense advertising services, however, are pale compared to the ongoing EU cartel case related to the digital advertising business benefiting Google, where regulators in June threatened to dissolve the company.