Sweden's Patent and Market Court awarded PriceRunner roughly 14.3 billion Swedish kronor in its case against Google, or $1.46 billion, plus interest after finding that the search company unlawfully promoted its own shopping-comparison product. The court described the award as the largest made in a Swedish competition case.
The damages covered harm in Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The components included just over one billion Swedish kronor, 675 million Danish kroner and £950 million, together with accrued interest of roughly 400 million kronor, 250 million Danish kroner and £300 million.
PriceRunner filed the case in 2022 and was later acquired by payments company Klarna. It had sought much more: about 64 billion Swedish kronor in damages and another 14 billion in interest. Judge Linda Kullberg said the company did not succeed on every part of its wide-ranging claim despite receiving an unprecedented award.
The lawsuit followed European competition decisions over Google's comparison-shopping practices. The European Commission found in 2017 that Google had breached antitrust law by preferring its own service in search results. The EU General Court upheld that conclusion in 2021, and the Court of Justice confirmed it again in 2024.
A central issue in Stockholm was how long the conduct and resulting harm continued. Google argued that it had ended the infringement in 2017, while PriceRunner said changes made that year were largely cosmetic and that the violation persisted at least through 2023. The Swedish court found that the abuse lasted longer than Google maintained and damaged PriceRunner.
Not all alleged losses were recoverable. The court concluded that part of the claim had been filed too late and declined to compensate continuing harm after the infringement ended. PriceRunner's lawyer said the damages corresponded to 15 years in Britain and ten years in Sweden and Denmark.
Google rejected the decision and said it was reviewing possible legal steps. A spokesperson defended the shopping-ad changes made in 2017. Klarna welcomed the result as support for a more competitive market in product and service comparisons.
The judgment translated earlier EU findings into a large private damages award across three national markets. It did not grant PriceRunner everything requested, and Google's consideration of legal options meant further proceedings remained possible. Even so, the scale of the order showed the potential financial consequences when a dominant platform's search design disadvantages a competing comparison service over many years.
PriceRunner’s lawyer stressed that the court found the infringement continued beyond the remedy Google introduced after 2017. That conclusion was important because damages depended on both duration and geography. The award’s division among three currencies reflected losses assessed separately in the three markets covered by the claim.
