The General Court of the European Union has dismissed an appeal by Google and its parent company Alphabet against a fine of €2.42 billion (US$2.77 billion, A$3.79 billion) levied for abusing its dominant market position for online general search services in 13 EU countries.
The fine was levied on Google in 2017, for abuse of its search engine dominance to give illegal advantage to its own comparison shopping service.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Court said it had dismissed the appeal by Google and its parent company, Alphabet, against the fine.
It said by "favouring its own comparison shopping service on its general results pages through more favourable display and positioning, while relegating the results from competing comparison services in those pages by means of ranking algorithms, Google departed from competition on the merits".
The Court also said that "the promotion on Google’s results pages of only one type of specialised result, namely its own, involves a certain form of abnormality".
The 13 countries in question are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Norway.
The Court said it "finds that Google’s differentiated treatment is based on the origin of the results, that is, whether they come from its own comparison shopping service or from competing services".
"The General Court thus rules that, in reality, Google favours its own comparison shopping service over competing services, rather than a better result over another result".
Google also faces a €4.34 billion (US$4.98 billion, A$6.8 billion) EU fine imposed on it in 2018 for allegedly breaching anti-trust rules relevant to Android, claiming the authorities had turned a blind eye to Apple, its sole rival in the smartphone space.
A third fine of €1.49 billion has been imposed by the EU for alleged abusive practices by Google in online advertising.
Google has yet to issue a public statement about the Court's decision.
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