UK comparison site PriceRunner files antitrust lawsuit against Google

PriceRunner Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Google LLC for a preliminary amount of about €2.1 billion in relation to an earlier court ruling, which stated the Alphabet Inc. unit manipulated search results in favor of its own comparison shopping services.

The lawsuit was filed with the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm, according to a Feb. 7 announcement from PriceRunner, which is seeking compensation for lost profits in the U.K. since 2008 and in Sweden and Denmark since 2013.

PriceRunner alleged that Google's action caused harm to European consumers and comparison shopping services. PriceRunner expects the amount of the final damages in the lawsuit to be significantly higher, arguing that Google's antitrust violation is still ongoing.

The European Commission first fined Google for the antitrust violation in 2017.

In 2017, Google reportedly proposed an auction for product listing ads for comparison shopping websites in a bid to comply with the EC's antitrust order.

Google did not immediately respond to S&P Global Market Intelligence's request for comment.