Google asks UK to dismiss $9B+ lawsuit accusing it of dominating online search – Reuters

Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has asked a London tribunal to chuck out a $9 billion plus lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of abusing its dominance in the online search market, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The lawsuit adds on to Google’s woes as the company is currently embroiled in antitrust trials in the United States and in the EU over its business practices.

The report said consumer rights campaigner and the lawsuit’s class representative, Nikki Stopford, argued Google’s dominance allows it to increase businesses’ costs for search advertising services, which are then passed on to consumers. Part of the lawsuit relies on the more than 4-billion-euro fine levied on Google by the European Commission in 2018 for imposing restrictions on Android mobile manufacturers.

The report said Stopford’s lawyers also argued that Google reached an anticompetitive deal with Apple (AAPL) to make it the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser in exchange for a share of Google’s mobile search ad revenues.

The lawyers have reportedly asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal to certify the case to proceed towards a trial. Google, however, says the case is “seriously flawed.” “The suggestion that consumers have been harmed by the Google conducts at issue is strongly rejected,” Google’s lawyer, Meredith Pickford, said in court documents.

Pickford added that the European Commission’s findings were simply “technical complaints about the particular form by which Google promoted its products.” He also said that Google’s default search engine agreement with Apple was “in principle perfectly lawful.”