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A Swedish court has ordered Google to pay 1.97 billion dollars (approximately 3.06 trillion won), including interest, in damages to the Swedish fintech company Klarna.
The Stockholm Patent and Market Court ruled on July 1 (local time) that Google had illegally favored its own price comparison service for years, causing financial harm to PriceRunner, a subsidiary of Klarna, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
This marks the largest damages award in the history of antitrust litigation in Sweden.
Klarna had filed a lawsuit seeking 8 billion dollars in damages, claiming that Google had caused significant losses by displaying its own price comparison service more prominently than PriceRunner on search result pages in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark between 2008 and 2023.
Although the court awarded a much smaller amount than initially sought, Klarna welcomed the decision.
"This ruling supports a healthier and more competitive market in how consumers compare products and services, which is beneficial for all shoppers," Klarna stated.
Google was previously fined 2.42 billion euros (approximately 4.3 trillion won) by the European Commission in 2017 for abusing its search dominance to favor its own shopping service.
PriceRunner argued that even after the European Commission's fine, Google continued to display its own price comparison service more prominently on its search engine than those of its competitors until 2023.
In response, Google stated, "We do not agree with the court's decision and will review our legal options," hinting at a possible appeal.
Google further countered, "We have successfully improved our shopping ad system following the 2017 EU decision, and hundreds of price comparison services operating over 1,500 websites across Europe are growing alongside us."
Klarna has developed and provided a shopping app that offers short-term interest-free loans to customers.
The company acquired PriceRunner in 2022 to increase traffic in the retail sector.
Following the news of the ruling, Klarna's stock price rose by 10 percent in after-hours trading.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
