PriceRunner Wins Swedish Antitrust Damages

A Swedish court ordered Google to pay Klarna subsidiary PriceRunner nearly $2 billion after finding that Google favoured its own price-comparison service.

The ruling gives Klarna a large court award tied to online shopping discovery, not to its buy-now-pay-later lending business.

PriceRunner is a comparison-shopping website.

Klarna acquired the company in April 2022 after PriceRunner sued Google in February 2022.

PriceRunner initially sought $8 billion in compensation and alleged that Google's abuse continued until 2023.

The case is linked to a 2.4 billion euro European Commission fine from 2017.

That earlier action found that Google abused search-engine dominance by favouring its own price-comparison service over rivals for more than a decade.

The Swedish case is part of the follow-on litigation that came after the EU decision.

Court Award Covers Sweden, Denmark And The UK

The court split the award across three currencies.

The damages line included more than 1 billion Swedish kronor.

It also included 675 million Danish kroner and 950 million British pounds.

Accrued interest added about 400 million Swedish kronor, 250 million Danish kroner and 300 million British pounds.

PriceRunner said Google's conduct hit its business in Sweden, Denmark and the UK.

The total judgment amounts to about $1.97 billion, and the article said that figure represents about 25% of Klarna's market capitalisation by another measure.

The currency split ties the award to losses across several national markets rather than one Swedish-only claim.

The ruling also puts a large technology-platform remedy inside Klarna's financial story at a time when the company is using PriceRunner data in shopping and payments products.

Judge Linda Kullberg described the damages as the largest ever ordered in a Swedish competition case.

Klarna head of communications and policy Dan Greaves said the ruling supports a more competitive market for product and service comparison.

Google Says It May Appeal

Google said it does not agree with the court's decision and is reviewing legal options.

The company said changes made to Shopping ads in 2017 are working and have generated growth and jobs for comparison-shopping services operating more than 1,500 websites across Europe.

The appeal risk keeps the court award separate from immediate liquidity.

Klarna can point to a competition-law victory, but the company's balance-sheet benefit depends on later legal steps and any collection process after appeals are resolved.

Keefe, Bruyette and Woods analysts said the judgment was positive for Klarna because the payment company could use a monetary windfall for buybacks or debt paydowns.

KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani also said he expects Google to appeal, which means the award may not become immediate cash for Klarna.

Klarna has turned PriceRunner into more than a litigation asset.

The company added product discovery, price comparison and reviews to its app, expanded the service to 13 markets and uses a database of more than 100 million products and 500 million merchant listings in its Shopping Search app in ChatGPT.

The judgment gives Klarna a major antitrust win in Sweden, but Google has not exhausted its legal options.

The court record does not provide a final appeal timetable, payment date or confirmed amount that Klarna can book as collected cash.