A Swedish court has ordered Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to pay nearly $2 billion in damages to Pricerunner, a unit of Klarna Group plc (NASDAQ: KLAR), for abusing its dominant position in the price comparison shopping market. The Stockholm Patent and Market Court issued the ruling this Wednesday, though it dismissed the majority of Pricerunner's claims. The company had initially sought damages of up to 80 billion Swedish kronor (approximately $8.2 billion) following a European Union antitrust decision. Despite this, Presiding Judge Linda Kullberg stated this is "undoubtedly the highest damages claim ever awarded in a Swedish competition law case." Following the announcement, Klarna's share price rose over 11% in pre-market trading. The judgment remains subject to appeal.

The Swedish price comparison website argued that Alphabet has for over a decade abused its search engine dominance to favor its own price comparison service in search results, thereby suppressing rival comparison portals. In a statement after the ruling, Klarna stated that the damages awarded on Wednesday are intended to compensate independent price comparison sites for revenue losses caused by Google's preferential treatment of its own shopping service. The statement further noted that such unfair competitive practices ultimately increase shopping costs for consumers.

Dan Grieves, Klarna's Head of Communications and Policy, said, "When markets function healthily, everyone benefits—consumers get better services at lower costs, businesses can focus on serving customers rather than defending turf, and society as a whole becomes more prosperous." A spokesperson for Alphabet stated that the company disagrees with the court's decision and is considering its legal options. The spokesperson added that adjustments made to Google's platform since 2017 have shown positive results, driving growth and creating jobs for hundreds of price comparison services operating over 1,500 websites across Europe.

This lawsuit is closely tied to a 2017 ruling by the European Commission, which fined Google 2.4 billion euros for illegally leveraging its search dominance to favor its own shopping service. That ruling triggered a wave of "follow-on" lawsuits, but these cases were stalled for years as Google appealed the EU fine. Two years ago, the EU's top court finally confirmed that Google had violated antitrust rules, meaning plaintiffs within the EU no longer need to re-prove this infringement in court.

Last year, a court in Berlin ordered Google to pay 573 million euros in damages to two German price comparison websites, a decision Google has appealed. Similar cases are currently ongoing across Europe.