Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US) has been ordered to compensate Klarna (KLAR.US) nearly $2 billion for abusing its dominant position in search to favor its own price comparison service.

Due to abusing its dominant position in the price comparison shopping service market, Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US) has been ordered by a Swedish court to pay nearly $2 billion in compensation to Klarna Group Plc's Pricerunner. The Stockholm Patent and Market Court made this ruling on Wednesday, rejecting most of Pricerunner's claims. The company had previously sought up to 80 billion Swedish kronor (about $8.2 billion) in compensation following an EU antitrust ruling. Nevertheless, presiding judge Linda Kurlberg stated that this is "undoubtedly the highest compensation ever awarded in a Swedish competition law case." Following the announcement of the ruling, Klarna's stock price rose over 11% in pre-market trading. The ruling can still be appealed. The Swedish price comparison shopping website claims that Alphabet Inc. Class C has been abusing its dominant position in search engine results for over a decade by prioritizing its own price comparison services, thereby suppressing competition from rival price comparison portals. In a statement following the ruling, Klarna stated that the compensation amount on Wednesday is intended to compensate for the revenue losses suffered by independent price comparison websites due to Alphabet Inc. Class C's favoritism towards its own price comparison shopping service. The statement also pointed out that this unfair competition ultimately drives up shopping costs for consumers. Dan Griffis, Klarna's Head of Communications and Policy, said, "When the market operates healthily, everyone benefits consumers get higher-quality services at lower costs, businesses can focus on serving customers rather than protecting their turf, and society as a whole prospers." A spokesperson for Alphabet Inc. Class C stated that the company disagrees with the court's ruling and will consider legal options going forward. The spokesperson mentioned that adjustments made to its platform by Alphabet Inc. Class C since 2017 have shown initial success, bringing job opportunities to hundreds of price comparison shopping services operating over 1500 websites across Europe. This lawsuit is closely related to a 2017 ruling by the European Commission. At that time, the EU imposed a 2.4 billion euro fine on Alphabet Inc. Class C for illegally favoring its own shopping service using its dominant position in search. This ruling sparked a wave of "follow-up litigation", but these cases were put on hold for years as Alphabet Inc. Class C appealed the EU fine. Two years ago, the EU's highest court confirmed that Alphabet Inc. Class C had violated antitrust laws, meaning that plaintiffs within the EU no longer needed to prove this violation in court. Last year, a court in Berlin ordered Alphabet Inc. Class C to pay 573 million euros in compensation to two German price comparison shopping websites, and Alphabet Inc. Class C has appealed this ruling. Similar cases are currently being processed throughout Europe.