The original 2017 decision gave Google 90 days to stop favoring its own shopping service in search results or face penalty payments; Google fought the case for four years instead. With the General Court now confirming the €2.42B fine, the Commission's self-preferencing theory survives its first full judicial test.
Google must keep operating its shopping equal-treatment remedies and carries the €2.42B fine as a final-ish liability, while rival shopping services gain a validated legal basis for their complaint.
The Commission gets judicial cover to keep enforcing the 2017 conduct decision, with penalty payments still available if compliance slips.
Second-order effects
Google's pending appeal against the EU's separate $1.7B advertising fine — filed back in 2019 — now proceeds under a precedent that upholds dominance abuse via self-preferencing, even though the later annulment of the €1.49B ads fine shows the courts will split case by case.
Rival comparison-shopping services can lean on the confirmed finding when pressing for remedy design, and other platforms facing self-preferencing claims in Europe gain a citable ruling.
Third-order effects
If the pattern in the coverage holds — shopping fine confirmed, ads fine struck — EU law settles on self-preferencing as a real abuse theory but with court-policed limits, making remedy design rather than liability the main battleground for dominant platforms.
The confirmed fine becomes part of the cost-of-dominance baseline that shapes how large platforms structure search and marketplace ranking in Europe going forward.
The trend: EU courts are entrenching self-preferencing by dominant platforms as an antitrust abuse while case-by-case trimming how far the theory extends into adjacent businesses like search advertising.
I've slept on it. Here's a ‘tepid-take’ (HT @DrMJCole) on Google ruling. - politically: huge for @vestager - practically: won't change much becoz #DMA is new kid in town, - legally: EU judges' stance on ‘essential facility’ will cause controversy & perhaps an appeal /thread
Losing this case would have been a horror for the entire policy drive, for cases against @Apple @amazon @Meta & for @vestager reputation. As it is, EC goes into all that strengthened. Court also said Google's “abnormal” conduct can't be explained away as the right to innovate/3
Google wasn't rolling out new innovations; it was shafting rivals, the court ruled. That helps EC argue it is on the side of innovation, not against it. 2nd, practically: Google has remedy in place & EC is showing little appetite to revisit it. But many want that to happen! /4
1st, politically: Court approval for @EU_Competition mantra of ‘self-preferencing’ is huge; this concept underpins the last decade of action & rhetoric from Brussels, and now the whole world. Court blessing for that will be read as: 'keep going, you're on the right track.' /2
Excellent news and congratulations @vestager and the Commission for this important decision! It's a key victory against abuses of dominant positions. Too bad it's a win celebrated on the graveyard of the victims of Google's practices, but it confirms we need interim measures! htt…
Again, taking the enforcement action to final court decision is a really big deal. Market should recognize it has ramifications for all self-preferencing by Google's search monopoly. And the timeline and market harms prove out why DMA is so critical. https://www.politico.eu/...