By Sam Schechner


Google is filing a last appeal of a $2.7 billion European Union antitrust fine, prolonging the legal battle over the first in a series of antitrust cases against the company.

The Alphabet Inc. search engine said Thursday that it is appealing to the EU's Court of Justice--the bloc's highest court--to overturn a 2017 fine related to its shopping-ads service, after losing its appeal in a lower court.

At stake in the case is a legal precedent that is the focus of intense scrutiny globally: whether the internet's biggest platforms have a special responsibility to avoid favoring their own in-house products and services over those offered by competitors.

The legal wrangling stems from a 2017 decision by the European Commission, the EU's top antitrust enforcer, that found Google broke antitrust laws by directing users toward its own comparison-shopping ads at the expense of rival shopping services.

Google appealed that decision but also implemented a remedy that allows rival shopping services to bid against Google for product-ad slots atop Google results pages--something that Google says has gone well but some rivals have called insufficient.

In November, the EU's General Court, its second-highest court, largely upheld the original decision, saying Google had "departed from competition on the merits."

In Thursday's new appeal, filed just before the deadline, Google says it is arguing that the General Court pushed beyond EU legal precedents and revised the reasoning of the underlying EU antitrust decision.

"We feel there are areas that require legal clarification from the European Court of Justice," a Google spokeswoman said, adding that the company would continue implementing its remedy.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said the body "will defend its case in court."

The European Commission has in recent years made two other antitrust decisions against Google, including one related to its Android operating system for mobile phones, which the company is also appealing.


Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com 


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01-20-22 1514ET