Google has once again failed in its effort to overturn a 2017 antitrust ruling by the European Commission. The case, which targeted Google’s shopping comparison service for breaching competition laws, resulted in a record-breaking €2.42 billion ($2.7 billion) fine. The European Union’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), upheld the decision, rejecting Google’s appeal and reinforcing the Commission’s stance that Google had abused its market dominance by self-preferencing its own shopping service in search results, thus disadvantaging competitors.

The ruling reaffirms the European Commission’s initial 2017 decision, which claimed that Google’s practices had harmed rival shopping comparison services by tilting its own general search results in favor of its shopping platform. Despite a minor modification in 2021, when the General Court annulled part of the decision related to the market for general search services, the core of the Commission’s ruling remains intact.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, hailed the ruling as a landmark moment in regulating Big Tech, calling it a victory for fair competition. “This is a pivotal moment in how digital companies are regulated,” she said, adding that dominant companies must innovate based on merit, not market power.

Google, on the other hand, expressed disappointment with the verdict. A company spokesperson emphasized that the judgment relates to “a specific set of facts” and that Google had made necessary changes to comply with the 2017 ruling.

This latest defeat for Google follows another major antitrust loss in September 2022 when it failed to overturn a €4.34 billion fine related to its Android platform.