Google’s first penalty under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act is shifting the company’s regulatory exposure from public fines toward private damages. Lawyers, comparison-shopping companies and litigation funders are assessing claims that could seek as much as $10 billion across several European jurisdictions.
The European Commission imposed two penalties totaling €890 million, about $1 billion. One decision found that Google favoured its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports services in search rankings; the other concerned restrictions that prevented businesses from directing Google Play users toward alternative, often cheaper purchasing channels.
A regulatory infringement can give private plaintiffs a stronger factual basis for proving anticompetitive conduct, although it does not determine the size of their losses. Lawyers say the findings may support claims for the DMA period and, under older abuse-of-dominance law, potentially for conduct before the new legislation took effect.
Existing cases show the possible scale. A Berlin court awarded German comparison platform Idealo €465 million in November. Italy’s Moltiply Group is seeking €2.97 billion, while two groups backed by litigation financier LitFin are claiming more than $1 billion combined in Amsterdam over shopping auctions.
The disputes extend beyond new filings. Kelkoo says the latest findings can strengthen its ongoing claims, and PriceRunner, backed by Klarna, won roughly $1.97 billion including interest in Stockholm in July. That judgment is expected to be appealed, so a large award does not necessarily become near-term cash for the claimant.
Google rejects the lawsuits, arguing that rivals are seeking payouts instead of investing in their products. It may also challenge the DMA penalty. The company’s response means courts will still have to decide causation, the counterfactual level of traffic or sales, the applicable period and the calculation of damages in each national case.
Time is a strategic variable. Some competition cases can take years through appeals; nearly two decades separated alleged shopping abuses from exhaustion of Google’s challenges in an earlier EU proceeding. Delays reduce immediate payment risk but can enlarge interest, legal costs and the number of claimants using final decisions as evidence.
The €890 million fine is therefore only the visible regulatory cost. Google now faces a second-order liability in private enforcement that may exceed the public sanction, while competitors must still prove their individual harm. The next phase will be determined less by the headline fine than by national courts, appeal timetables and the methods used to quantify lost business.
