The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal receives a class action claim for £7B in damages against an online search giant for allegedly exploiting its market dominance to charge higher prices (Google / Nikki Stopford)

A collective claim against Google was filed in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) arguing that the business has used its search engine dominance to shut out competition in mobile search. It is alleged that Google uses its market dominance to raise the prices paid by advertisers for prominence on the Google search page. Those increased prices are then systematically passed on to consumers, who are charged higher prices for the goods and services they buy. Hausfeld represents proposed class representative, Nikki Stopford, a UK-based consumer champion with 25 years’ experience advocating and raising industry standards for consumers. The claim seeks approximately £7bn in redress on behalf of tens of millions of consumers – in short, anyone aged 16 years or over who has purchased goods