According to a post on the The Telegraph, Google plans to file an appeal against the roughly $2.7 billion (€2.4 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Commission in June for abuse of market position in shopping search. Aside from the $1.3 billion against Intel, the Google fine is the largest in EU history.
Intel had won a rare partial victory against EU antitrust regulators last week when the European Court of Justice instructed a lower court to re-examine the decision and take a better look at the underlying facts and market impact of Intel’s behavior.
It isn’t clear if the decision last week impacted Google’s thinking of if they should or shouldn’t appeal (although Google probably made their decision before last week). Even though it’ll take several years, filing an appeal would make sense since the company faces potential similar fines and demands for other types of “vertical search” results, like map’s/local, travel, as well as other categories.
In order to fall under compliance with EU rules, Google is required to submit proposals for changes in its search results. Google’s plan had reportedly been submitted last month. The company is going to be compelled to make those changes and live within them during the appeal process.
Not only is Google dealing with the EU, it is also facing private litigation from European shopping comparison site Kelkoo, as well as possibly others. According to Kelkoo, Google shopping results have deprived them of traffic. It would seem that the European Commission decision and fine can apparently be entered into evidence in a civil case. After that, the question to be litigated is if Google’s behavior caused the alleged damages (such as revenue and loss of traffic).
There are two other antitrust matters that involve Google in the EU. The first one focuses on exclusivity provisions in Google AdWords agreements, while the other deals with app-install requirements in Android-OEM contracts.