Google is sued for £13.6 billion over advertising technology

Google must face a multibillion-pound lawsuit following allegations of anti-competitive behaviour in the advertising technology market, a court has ruled.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal upheld on Wednesday a £13.6 billion claim by the Ad Tech Collective Action LLP group, which alleges that Google’s practices have damaged UK publishers.

Advertising technology, or adtech, is a series of tools that helps sell online ads between publishers, like news websites, and advertisers.

It is a highly profitable market, which in 2021 exceeded $490 billion.

Ad Tech Collective Action has claimed that Google abused its dominant position in the adtech market, preventing healthy competition and causing financial losses to UK online publishers.

In response to the decision, Google said that the case was “incoherent.” Oliver Bethell, legal director at Google, called the lawsuit “speculative and opportunistic.”

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“We will oppose it vigorously and on the facts,” said Mr. Bethell.

While no date has yet been set, a partner at Ad Tech Collective Action, Claudio Pollack, said that Google will have to answer “for its practices in a full trial.”

The group alleges that Google has abused its power in the adtech market by promoting its own products and services over those of its competitors. Limited competition prevented publishers from achieving higher prices for their impressions, the claim added.

Mr. Pollack said the court’s decision was of “major importance to the victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech.”

“I look forward to working with our legal and economic advisers to deliver compensation for years during which the relevant markets did not provide a competitive outcome for the UK publishing market,” he added.

Legal Scrutiny

The claim brought by Ad Tech Collective Action is an “opt-out,” which means it includes all relevant published in the UK, unless they choose not to be part of the case.

The claim is being “fully funded,” said the group, which means publishers won’t have to cover any costs if they join.

Google said it has constructive partnerships with publishers across the UK and Europe. Its advertising tools and those of adtech competitors “help millions of websites and apps fund their content,” said Mr. Bethell.

Businesses of all sizes can reach new customers, he said, adding that adtech services “adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers.”

The upcoming trial adds to legal scrutiny from regulators in the UK, United States, and Europe over Google’s conduct in adtech.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently investigating whether Google has abused its dominance in the adtech space. The investigation was launched in May 2022 and is set to continue until September.

It centres around concerns that Google took steps to exclude the services offered by rivals.

It also reviews whether the giant made it more difficult for rival ad servers to compete by limiting the interoperability of its ad exchange with third-party publisher ad servers or contractually tying these services together.

Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s chief executive, said that unhealthy adtech market conduct would hurt millions of people who “enjoy access to a wealth of free information online every day.”

“Weakening competition in this area could reduce the ad revenues of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content behind paywalls. It may also be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through higher prices for advertised goods and services,” said Mr. Coscelli when the investigation was launched two years ago.

The EU Commission opened an investigation into Google’s presumably anti-competitive behaviour in adtech in June 2021.

Two years later, the commission told Google that it “breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.”

PA Media contributed to this report.