European, US anti-trust bodies closing in on Google

Search giant Google, already facing antitrust charges from Europe's competition authorities, may now be the target of a series of new civil lawsuits that claim Google abused its market dominance to favor its own services over those of its rivals.

On Tuesday, Hausfeld, an international law firm with connections to companies affected by Google's activities in Europe, and Avisa, a European public affairs company that has represented complainants in the antitrust case, will announce that they have created an online platform to help companies sue Google for financial damages in European courts.

The move could add to the growing legal and regulatory problems Google and other West Coast tech companies face in Europe, where policy makers have balked at these companies' growing influence in how Europeans surf the web.

In addition to the antitrust investigation into Google, European regulators are considering new copyright and privacy rules that will affect American tech companies.

Hausfeld and Avisa plan to offer information to prospective clients - primarily companies - about the European Commission's four-year competition investigation into Google.

The investigation has focused on whether Google favorus its online search for shopping, restaurant results and other online services. If Google is found to have breached antitrust law, Hausfeld and Avisa would most likely use the case as evidence in any potential civil cases.

''So far, the focus has been on public enforcement,'' said Laurent Geelhand, managing partner at Hausfeld, in Brussels, who declined to comment on the size of any potential civil damages. ''But what's still missing is how this has financially affected the victims.''

A spokesman for Google declined to comment about the effort by Hausfeld and Avisa.

Last week, the search giant officially responded to Europe's competition charges. In a blog post, Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, claimed that the company's activities across the European Union had not harmed consumer choice and that there was significant competition in the region's online search market.

Lawyers and industry executives expect Margrethe Vestager, the region's chief antitrust official, to rule on Google's antitrust charges by late 2015 or early next year. Along with any civil damages, the company may face potential fines of up to 10 per cent of its annual revenue, or roughly $6.6 billion, if some of its online practices are shown to be uncompetitive.

In the United States, there is a decades-long tradition of companies seeking civil damages for antitrust abuses, but competition lawyers say these cases are still relatively new in the 28-member European bloc. Late last year, the European Commission passed new rules that made it easier for companies to seek civil damages linked to antitrust abuses. Because these lawsuits are relatively new to Europe, legal experts say it remains unclear how the civil lawsuits will stand up in court.

''As the European Commission moves towards making its antitrust decision, it's time to start building civil cases,'' Geelhand said. ''We'll be ready to move quickly when that decision finally arrives.''

This is also not the first time that Avisa and Hausfeld have used Europe's civil courts in their battle against Google.

In 2011, Avisa helped 1PlusV, a French search engine, sue Google for €295 million, or about $330 million, in French courts, claiming Google had harmed its rival services. Hausfeld also represents Foundem, a British price-comparison website, in a British civil case against Google. And Streetmap, an online mapping service, has filed for a separate case for damages in Britain against Google.

The outcomes of the three cases have been postponed until the European Commission decides whether Google broke the region's antitrust rules.