Google Must Pay PriceRunner €1.3 Billion Over Search Abuse

A Swedish court has ordered Google to pay 14.3 billion kronor, roughly €1.3 billion, after ruling that the search giant illegally favored its own shopping comparison tool over Klarna owned PriceRunner for years. The Stockholm Patent and Market Court decision marks one of the largest damages awards of its kind in Sweden.

In Brief

• Stockholm's Patent and Market Court fined Google 14.3 billion kronor (€1.3bn) over harm to PriceRunner.
• Klarna values the award, with interest, at about $1.97 billion (€1.7bn).
• PriceRunner had sought roughly 80 billion kronor (€7.2bn), so the court granted a fraction of the claim.
• The case builds on the European Commission's 2017 finding against Google, upheld by the EU's top court in 2024.
• Google is expected to appeal; Klarna shares jumped 11.5% in pre market trading.

What the Stockholm Ruling Actually Found

The court concluded that PriceRunner suffered commercial harm from what it termed Google's unlawful favouring of its own price comparison service in search results, a pattern the judgment says persisted over many years. PriceRunner filed the damages claim in 2022, arguing that demotion in search rankings caused sustained losses stretching back more than a decade. Klarna acquired PriceRunner that same year and has since integrated its comparison technology into the Klarna app.

Even though the court sided with PriceRunner on liability, it rejected the bulk of the financial claim. Plaintiffs had sought roughly 80 billion kronor; the award landed at a fraction of that figure, underscoring how damages calculations in competition cases often diverge sharply from claimants' initial estimates.

The European Commission Groundwork

This judgment does not stand alone. It rests on findings the European Commission first made in 2017, when it fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing its dominant position in search by giving illegal preference to its own comparison shopping service. That decision survived review and was upheld by the EU's highest court in 2024, giving national courts like Stockholm's a settled liability finding to build private damages claims upon.

Google has said it made substantial changes to its search results in 2017 specifically to satisfy the Commission's requirements, and it has continued to reject the Swedish lawsuit's premise. The company is expected to appeal the Stockholm ruling to a higher court, which means the 14.3 billion kronor figure is far from final.

What Klarna Actually Collects, and What Comes Next

Any recovery Klarna eventually sees will shrink well below the headline number. Tax obligations apply, and Klarna must also share proceeds with former PriceRunner shareholders and the litigation funder that financed the case. Klarna's own investor statement values the award, including interest, at approximately $1.97 billion, a figure that already anticipates appeal risk rather than guaranteed cash in hand.

Klarna's head of communications and policy, Dan Greaves, framed the ruling as support for a healthier, more competitive market in how consumers compare products and prices. Whether that framing survives Google's appeal is the open question now hanging over the case, and it will likely keep Google's European antitrust exposure, already anchored by the landmark Google Shopping precedent, in view for years to come.