Swedish Court Delays Verdict in Klarna-Google Antitrust Clash

Klarna said Friday (April 10) that a Swedish court has delayed by two months its judgment in an antitrust case that Klarna subsidiary PriceRunner brought against Google.

The Patent and Market Court in Stockholm, Sweden, rescheduled the publication of its judgment from April 15 to June 10, Klarna said in an investor update.

The court said that “additional time is needed to finalize the judgment,” according to the update.

“The outcome of the proceedings is inherently uncertain,” Klarna said in the update. “No assurance can be given that PriceRunner will succeed on liability or quantum. Any award would be subject to appeal by Google, to sharing arrangements with the former PriceRunner shareholders and Klarna’s liquidation funder, and to applicable taxation.”

Klarna said in a Feb. 24 press release that the trial ran from Oct. 20 to Dec. 19, 2025, and that PriceRunner was seeking $8.3 billion in antitrust damages.

PriceRunner’s claim followed a 2017 European Commission decision that Google abused its dominance in online comparison shopping, and a 2024 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union that upheld that decision, according to the release.

“PriceRunner alleges that Google systematically demoted competing price comparison services in its search results while favoring its own Google Shopping product, causing sustained and quantifiable commercial damage to PriceRunner over more than a decade,” Klarna said in the release.

It was reported in October 2025 that PriceRunner initially launched the lawsuit before its acquisition by Klarna in 2022, seeking about $2 billion in damages. The company later recalculated its damages claim to $8.3 billion, citing what it described as years of financial losses caused by Google’s practices.

When announcing its lawsuit in February 2022, PriceRunner said that it had lost profits for years due to Google’s behavior.

In response to the lawsuit, a Google representative told AFP in October 2025: “We strongly oppose this lawsuit and look forward to presenting our case in court.”

Google has maintained that it made substantial adjustments in 2017 to comply with EU requirements. The company said those changes have successfully broadened participation, with the number of price comparison sites using its platform increasing from seven at the time to 1,550 in October 2025.