Italy’s Moltiply Sues Google in $3.3B Lawsuit Over Market Dominance

Italy’s Moltiply Group said on Friday it was suing Alphabet’s Google and seeking damages of 2.97 billion euros ($3.34 billion) for abuse of its dominant market position as previously recognized by the EU Court of Justice.

Moltiply operates the popular Italian price comparison website Trovaprezzi.it.

Its claim argues that Google’s actions hindered the growth of its subsidiary 7Pixel between 2010 and 2017, favoring Google Shopping instead, Moltiply said in a statement.

The claim was filed at a Milan court, Italian daily Corriere della Sera said without giving further details.

“We disagree strongly with these exorbitant private damages claims which disregard this successful and growing industry,” a spokesperson for Google said in a statement in response to a Reuters request for comment.

The European Commission fined Google, the world’s most popular internet search engine, in 2017 for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.

In September, the company lost a final appeal against the 2.42 billion euro fine.

“The changes Google made in 2017 following the European Commission’s decision are working as intended and the number of comparison shopping sites in Europe using our shopping features has multiplied from just 7 to more than 1,550,” the Google spokesperson added.

($1 = 0.8894 euros)

(Reporting by Rossi, Pollina; editing by Alvise Armellini, Kirsten Donovan)