Swedish court orders Google to pay €1.3 billion to PriceRunner over competition breach
Stockholm's Patent and Market Court has ruled that Google illegally favoured its own price comparison service, awarding €1.3 billion in damages to Klarna-owned PriceRunner.
The court decision
On 1 July 2026, the Patent and Market Court of Stockholm ordered Google to pay 14.3 billion Swedish kronor (€1.3 billion, or $1.5 billion according to some reports) to PriceRunner, a price comparison service owned by Klarna. The court found that Google had illegally favoured its own price comparison service for many years, harming competitors. PriceRunner brought the case in 2022, originally seeking €2.1 billion, but the court awarded a lower amount.
PriceRunner is considered to have suffered damage as a result of Google having illegally favoured its own price comparison service for many years.
Background of the dispute
PriceRunner, a Swedish-founded comparison shopping service, sued Google in 2022, accusing the tech giant of manipulating search results to give an unfair advantage to Google Shopping. The lawsuit claimed Google violated EU antitrust rules, a practice that had already been penalised by the European Commission in 2017 with a €2.4 billion fine. Klarna acquired PriceRunner in the same year to embed its product search and price comparison features into the Klarna app.
- PriceRunner files antitrust lawsuit against Google, seeking €2.1 billion in damages.
- Klarna acquires PriceRunner to integrate price comparison into its shopping app.
- Stockholm court orders Google to pay 14.3 billion SEK (€1.3bn) for illegally favouring its own service.
Klarna's stake
Since the acquisition, Klarna has integrated PriceRunner’s database into its shopping features, expanding to 13 markets. The platform now indexes over 100 million products from more than 500 million merchants. Klarna recently launched a shopping search feature in ChatGPT, powered by the PriceRunner database, as part of its agent-commerce strategy. The award is a significant asset for Klarna, which stated that the ruling supports a healthier market.
When markets work well, everyone benefits. Consumers get higher quality at lower prices, companies focus on serving customers instead of defending their positions, and society wins. This ruling backs a healthier, competitive market for product and service comparison, which is good for all shoppers.
What happens next
Google is expected to appeal the decision. The ruling adds to a series of antitrust challenges for the company in Europe, where regulators and courts have repeatedly targeted its dominance in search and advertising. While the damages are substantial, they represent a fraction of Google’s parent Alphabet’s annual profits. The case also highlights the continuing fallout from the EU’s 2017 Google Shopping decision and the willingness of national courts to award private damages.
