London (EFE).- The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT, in English) of London authorized this Wednesday the proceeding of a class action lawsuit filed by the Ad Tech group against Google for the alleged abuse of its dominant position in the digital market in the United Kingdom.
Ad Tech, promoted by Claudio Pollack, Charles Arthur and Kate Wellington and open to any potential plaintiff, is asking for compensation estimated at around 13.6 billion pounds (15.981 million euros, 17.37 billion dollars) for the loss of income suffered since 1 January 2014 for some 200,000 web pages or applications that were supposedly harmed by the multinational’s practices.
Accused of violating the Competition Law
The plaintiffs accuse parent company Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Google UK Limited of violating Article 18 of the Competition Act 1998 and Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
According to court documents, “the infringement alleges abuse of dominant position by Google in three of the digital advertising markets.”
“The essence of the alleged abuses is that Google has given itself preference over other competitors in these markets,” it states.
During the court process, representatives of the American giant tried to prevent the lawsuit from being authorized on the grounds that it was not sufficiently substantiated, which the judges rejected this Wednesday. This means that a trial will now take place, on a date to be determined.
Google has already been fined in France
Ad Tech, which will act on behalf of all affected parties – unless they ask to withdraw – at no cost to them, explains on its website that “in 2021 Google was fined by the French Competition Authority for abusing its dominant position in relation to advertising technology services.”
“It is possible that UK-based publishers (and, if applicable, their publishing partners) who received revenue from the sale of online ads since January 1, 2014, may also have suffered financial losses” from such alleged anti-competitive conduct. of the company, he explains.
CAT already authorized class action lawsuits this year against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and Apple, for abuse of their dominant positions in their respective areas.
