Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) had a rough week in the courts - here's what happened. Three Court Losses in Three Days
On Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate judge ruled that Google is barred from re-litigating whether it holds monopoly power in the general search market-a decision that gives Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) a significant advantage in its own antitrust suit. The ruling means that if the Yelp case reaches trial, jurors will simply be told Google has a search monopoly rather than Yelp having to prove it.
On Wednesday, a Swedish court ordered Google to pay approximately $1.97 billion in damages to PriceRunner-the price-comparison platform owned by Klarna Group Plc (NYSE: KLAR)-for favoring its own shopping service in search results. Also on Wednesday, South Korea's antitrust regulator alleged that Google abused its dominant position in the Android app marketplace to restrict competition, with a potential fine of up to $546 million.
On Thursday, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld a €4.1 billion ($4.67 billion) antitrust fine against Google related to anti-competitive practices tied to the Android operating system, the EU's largest-ever antitrust penalty against a single company. Google told Reuters it had already updated its agreements in 2018 to comply with the original decision.
The stock is still up approximately 4% over the past week despite the court losses.
Google Shares Edge Lower
GOOG Price Action: At the time of publication, Google shares are trading 0.58% lower at $355.82, according to data from Benzinga Pro.