Swedish court delays Google damages judgment
The Stockholm Patent and Market Court postponed its April 15 delivery of judgment in the PriceRunner v Google antitrust damages case to June 10, extending legal uncertainty for firms that depend on large platforms. The delay lengthens timelines for private damages actions that may follow public antitrust findings. (stocktitan.net)
A Swedish court was supposed to rule on April 15 in PriceRunner’s damages case against Google. Instead, the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm pushed the date to June 10, 2026 at 11:00 Central European Time and said it needed more time to finalize the judgment. (businesswire.com) This is not a new antitrust investigation. It is a damages lawsuit, which means PriceRunner is trying to turn an earlier competition ruling against Google into cash compensation in a Swedish court. (businesswire.com) (eur-lex.europa.eu) The earlier ruling came from the European Commission on June 27, 2017. The Commission fined Google 2.42 billion euros after finding that Google gave its own comparison shopping service better placement in search results than rival services. (eur-lex.europa.eu) PriceRunner is one of those rival services. It says Google pushed competing price-comparison sites down the page while steering users toward Google Shopping, which PriceRunner says cut its traffic and revenue over several years. (businesswire.com) (seekingalpha.com) The legal foundation for that claim got stronger in September 2024, when the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the Google Shopping decision. That matters because a private damages case is much easier to press when the underlying abuse finding has already survived the top European court. (businesswire.com) The money at stake is huge. Klarna, which owns PriceRunner, has said the claim is about 8.3 billion dollars, and it has described the case as the largest civil damages claim ever filed in a Swedish court. (businesswire.com) (finance.yahoo.com) The trial itself already happened. It ran in Stockholm from October 20 to December 19, 2025, so the delay is not about opening the case; it is about the judges taking nearly two extra months to finish the written decision. (finance.yahoo.com) Even when the ruling arrives on June 10, the fight may not be over. Klarna told investors that any award could still be appealed by Google, and any payout would also be affected by tax, litigation funding arrangements, and sharing terms with former PriceRunner shareholders. (businesswire.com) That is why a date change in one Stockholm courtroom matters outside Sweden. If PriceRunner wins real money off the back of the 2017 Google Shopping ruling, other companies that say they were hurt by the same conduct will have a clearer map for bringing follow-on damages claims of their own. (eur-lex.europa.eu) (businesswire.com)
