Now it's time for our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, exploring legal issues in the news, and Today Bloomberg Laho student Grosso and Michael Best discussed Google's decision to appeal a record breaking two point nine billion dollar anti trust fine from the European Union. They speak of the Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree. Jennifer, why is it that Google has decided, unlike a lot of companies that have settled with the Commission, to appeal this fine. Well, that's
a good question, and I guess it. You know, only Google really can say why they've decided to do this, though it seems with the Intel decision in a qualified sense, you know, that's kind of good news, I think for Google, because what it does is it sets up a court precedent in Europe that where a theory of harm is based on foreclosure of competitors, which is the case in both Intel's situation and in Google situation, that it can't just be taken for granted that that foreclosure is anti
competitive and violates the laws, that an economic analysis needs to be applied and all of the facts and circumstances need to be um evaluated to understand whether really that causes harm to markets. Jen, a court spokeswoman, said that Google has not asked for an interim order to suspend the EU decision, which means that without an injunction, it's still obligated to pay the fine and comply with other elements of the June ruling. Can you imagine why they
decided not to ask for an injunction? That is right, they will have to pay the fine and alter the way their shopping services comparison shopping services are displayed. Um. I think it's likely that they did not seek an injunction because that standard is very high, and it's unlikely that they could have met it. They would have had to show that there is urgency and that they would have suffered irreparable harm had they had to comply now and they have to pay this fine which they can't afford,
and changing these shopping services. It just seems unlikely they would have been able to prove in court that having to do these things now, as they waited out the appeal would have caused urgent and irreparable harm to their business. What happens now? Uh, and and how can we expect this case to move along, well, it will move along slowly much we know. So we'll now wait for the
General Court decision. And it could uphold what the European Commission has done here with respect to requiring a fine, endo conduct remedy or it, or it could say that this needs to be reevaluated or reverse things or even lower the fine. That's Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Litigation analyst Jennifer Re speaking with Bloomberg Lah host ju In Grosso. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall Street time here on Bloomberg Radio, and that's this morning's
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