The European Commission has decided to formally accuse Google of violating EU competition rules, said a person familiar with the process for Dow Jones Newswires yesterday. The task is also reported by the Financial Times referring to two sources.
The decision was made yesterday by the Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager in consultation with the chairman Jean-Claude Juncker. Other commissioners will be informed on Wednesday.
The case has been investigated by the EU in five years, and almost reached a settlement during the former Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia. The issue is politically charged and media companies from countries such as Germany and France pushed for tougher.
Google accused, among other things, for abusing its dominant position in the search market by favoring its own services at the expense of services from third party.
The theoretical maximum penalty is a fine of 10 percent of turnover, which in Google’s case amounted to 66 billion dollars in 2014.
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