Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
A Berlin court ruled Google must pay €465M to Idealo for market abuse. Google plans to appeal, citing changes made in 2017 to address competition concerns.
BERLIN (Reuters) -Google must pay the German price comparison platform Idealo approximately 465 million euros ($542 million) in damages for market abuse, a Berlin court has ruled.
The court found that Google had abused its dominant market position in two case decisions and ordered the U.S. technology giant to pay damages, both rulings can be appealed, a court spokesperson told Reuters.
In addition to Idealo, the company behind another German price comparison site, Producto, will also be awarded 107 million euros.
Following the rulings, Idealo - a subsidiary of the German media group Axel Springer - said that it would continue its legal action against Google.
"We will continue to fight – because market abuse must have consequences and must not become a lucrative business model that pays off despite fines and damages payments," said Idealo co-founder Albrecht von Sonntag.
Idealo had demanded 3.3 billion euros, including interest, from Google. The company accused the search engine operator of abusing its market for price comparisons between 2008 and 2023.
Google strongly rejects the rulings and will appeal, said a spokesperson for the company.
Google said it had made changes in 2017 to ensure rival comparison shopping services were given the same opportunity as its own Google Shopping to display ads on its search results page.
"The changes we made in 2017 have proven successful without intervention from the European Commission," said the spokesperson.
"The number of price comparison sites in Europe using the Shopping Unit designed by the remedy has increased from seven to 1,550."
($1 = 0.8575 euros)
(Reporting by Klaus Lauer, Writing by Miranda Murray,Editing by Louise Heavens)
Market abuse refers to practices that distort the integrity of financial markets, including insider trading and manipulation of stock prices.
Compensation in finance refers to the payment or remuneration given to individuals or companies for services rendered or losses incurred.
A court ruling is a decision made by a judge or court regarding a legal case, which determines the outcome based on the law.
A price comparison platform is a website or service that allows consumers to compare prices of products or services from different retailers.
A dominant market position occurs when a company has a significant share of the market, allowing it to influence prices and competition.
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