Idealo sues Google for more than 3 billion euros

It is a juicy sum that now demands the Idealo price comparison portal: The company demands 3.3 billion euros, which has now extended its lawsuit before the Berlin Regional Court. That reports.

The accusation: Google abuse its dominant position as a search engine and prefer their own offers over the “Google Shopping” service to Idealo. Idealo also demands extensive information about traffic, sales and profit from Google.

The background to the lawsuit is a judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) from last autumn. At that time, a fine of 2.42 billion euros that the EU Commission had imposed against Google was declared legitimate by the ECJ.

The fine was based on the accusation that the tech giant had placed its own brand at the top in the search results via “Google Shopping” and at the same time downgraded the competition. The EU Commission had already imposed the fine-at that time at a record height-in 2017.

Google and the parent company Alphabet complained against the decision in the first instance before the European Union court, which confirmed the fine in November 2021. Against the judgment of the court, Google and Alphabet then turned to the ECJ. They were also unsuccessful there.

Idealo’s lawsuit before the Berlin Regional Court was submitted in 2019. At that time, the compensation required by Google was half a billion euros, according to the “FAZ”. The procedure rested as long as the legal dispute between the European Commission and Google ran. Idealo had reserved an extension of the lawsuit – which has now happened.

The majority belongs to the Axel Springer Group. Albrecht von Sonntag, co-founder and advisory board of Idealo, the “FAZ” said that the proceedings before the Berlin district court are not just an idealo, “but the question of how far we abuse of extreme market power at the expense of freedom of choice the consumer wants to allow “.

Already last year von Sonntag said, which is also part of the Springer group: “Google is a big fish. And the big fish eats the smaller ones, gets billions, pays hardly any taxes-and the local competitors fly one after the other from the market. ” The customers who would pay an average of ten percent more according to an expert opinion.

In Brussels, it has been wrestling for years how to prevent competition distortions from the huge tech companies. In addition to laws such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is supposed to combat the dominance of large online platforms, Google’s competitive keepers over the past few years over the past few years with several penalties of over eight billion euros. The group quickly digested this with its booming online advertising business, but had to change its business model in some cases.

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