SWEDISH COURT ORDERS GOOGLE TO PAY KLARNA $1.46BN IN ANTITRUST DAMAGES

A Swedish court has ordered Google to pay 14.3 billion kronor (about $1.46 billion) in damages to PriceRunner, the comparison-shopping site now owned by Klarna. It is the largest competition-law damages award ever handed down in Sweden, and it lands after more than a decade of litigation over how Google ranked shopping results.

The Patent and Market Court in Stockholm found that "Pricerunner is deemed to have suffered damage as a result of Google having, for many years, unlawfully favoured its own price comparison service.". The case covered Google's conduct in Sweden, Denmark, and the U.K., three jurisdictions where the court determined that PriceRunner lost business because Google's own product got preferential placement.

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PriceRunner first sued in 2022, following a European Union General Court ruling that Google had "breached EU antitrust laws by manipulating search results in favour of their own comparison shopping services.". That 2021 ruling, which the EU Court of Justice upheld again in 2024, confirmed that Google's practice of demoting rival price-comparison services in its search results while elevating its own Shopping tab violated competition law. PriceRunner's suit used that finding as a springboard to seek damages for the specific harm it suffered in the Nordic markets and the U.K.

THE BREAKDOWN

The total award amounts to about 14.3 billion kronor, plus what the court described as "just over" "accrued interest". Broken out by market, the damages include roughly 1 billion Swedish kronor for Sweden, 675 million Danish kroner (around $103 million) for Denmark, and approximately 950 million pounds (around $1.26 billion) for the U.K. The U.K. portion accounts for the bulk of the payout, reflecting both the size of the market and the longer period over which the court found Google liable.

The court determined that Google owed damages for 15 years of harm in the U.K. but only 10 years in Sweden and Denmark. That discrepancy stems from jurisdictional rules on when the statute of limitations began running in each country.

WHAT THE COURT FOUND

The trial opened in October of last year, and a ruling initially expected by April 15 was pushed back multiple times before the court finally issued its verdict. Google had argued that its abuse of a dominant position ended in 2017, the year it made changes to how it displayed shopping ads in response to the original European Commission decision. The court disagreed, finding that "Google's abuse continued for longer than Google had claimed, and that the abuse caused Pricerunner harm."

Pontus Scherp, who argued the case for PriceRunner, said the court "highlighted that the court found that Google never ceased its infringement" and that Google's changes in 2017 were "mostly cosmetic.". The ruling aligns with a persistent criticism of Google's remedy: that it merely shuffled the layout without meaningfully restoring competition. The court concluded the abuse continued after 2017 and caused harm to PriceRunner through at least 2023.

Still, PriceRunner did not get everything it wanted. The company had originally sought around $2 billion in damages and later raised its demand to 64 billion kronor plus 14 billion kronor in interest. The court found that part of the claim was brought too late and declined to award compensation for "ongoing harm" after the abuse period ended.

HOW THE PARTIES REACTED

A Google spokesman said the company "We don't agree with the court's decision; we are reviewing and will consider our legal options. The changes we made to shopping ads back in 2017 are working successfully," and will consider legal options. The statement insists the 2017 changes are working. An appeal to a higher Swedish court is expected, which could draw the case out further.

Dan Greaves of Klarna, which acquired PriceRunner, said the ruling "supports a healthier, more competitive market for the way people compare products and services—and that is good for everyone who shops.". The tone from the winner was cautiously triumphant. Judge Linda Kullberg herself noted that while PriceRunner was not entirely successful, the award is "In many ways, this is a complex and wide-ranging case, and although Pricerunner has not been entirely successful in its claim, the damages awarded are undoubtedly the largest ever ordered in a Swedish competition case,".

Scherp said more directly that "The judgment shows that competition law provides real protection for companies that suffer harm as a result of competition law infringements committed by dominant firms such as Google,". The decision shows that private plaintiffs can win significant damages based on EU antitrust findings. Most competition damages in Europe come via follow-on suits after regulators act, but the sums are typically far smaller.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR GOOGLE IN EUROPE

The $1.46 billion award is large by European standards, but it is a fraction of Google's annual revenue and will not meaningfully dent the company's balance sheet. The bigger risk is precedent. PriceRunner's success could encourage other comparison services to file similar suits in other EU member states, each seeking damages for the same underlying conduct over different time windows. Google already faces a separate claim from a group of U.K. price-comparison sites, and the Swedish court's reasoning may embolden those plaintiffs.

The case also reinforces a broader regulatory trajectory. The European Commission's original shopping decision in 2017 has survived appeals, and the EU's Digital Markets Act now imposes ex-ante rules on gatekeepers that ban exactly the kind of self-preferencing Google was found to have done. The Swedish ruling is a private-law echo of a public-policy shift that is already reshaping how platforms handle product search.

THE GAP BETWEEN ASK AND REWARD

PriceRunner's initial claim of 64 billion kronor looked ambitious from the start. The court's 14.3 billion kronor award is still enormous by Swedish standards, but it leaves the company with a fraction of what it argued was its full loss over more than a decade. That gap reflects the difficulty of quantifying harm from search manipulation. Courts have to distinguish between lost sales caused by Google's conduct and lost sales that would have happened anyway because users prefer Google's shopping results or because PriceRunner's own product was worse.

The court's decision to limit damages in Sweden and Denmark to 10 years and to exclude harm after the abuse stopped also trimmed the total. Google can be expected to argue on appeal that the remaining award is still too high and that the method used to calculate lost profits was flawed.

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For now, Klarna gets a legal victory and a cash judgment that, with accrued interest, will be larger than the base award. Google gets another reminder that European courts are willing to make the antitrust convictions of regulators sting in practice, not just in principle.