A London Tribunal has given the green light to a £14bn class action against Google, which alleges the tech giant abused its dominance in the digital advertising market.
A group known as Ad Tech Collective Action filed the lawsuit against the US tech giant in late 2022.
Ad tech concerns various technologies that intermediate between sellers of ads, such as a website publisher or app developer and buyers who wish to place digital ads on their ‘properties’.
The class action is seeking to recover costs and damages for UK-domiciled publishers and publisher partners over alleged harm in the form of lower revenues caused by Google’s conduct in the ad tech sector.
Last year, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) consolidated three similar claims against Google into one class action.
In order to bring a collective competition action at the CAT, the claimants first have to have their claim certified by the Tribunal in order to proceed.
The Tribunal today approved the application for certification, meaning the claim can now proceed towards a trial. That, however, is unlikely to take place until the end of 2025, according to reports.
Google said it will continue to challenge the claim.
“This lawsuit is speculative and opportunistic. We’ll oppose it vigorously and on the facts,” Oliver Bethell, Google’s legal director, said.
“Google works constructively with publishers across the UK and Europe. Our advertising tools, and those of our many adtech competitors, help millions of websites and apps fund their content, and enable businesses of all sizes to effectively reach new customers. These services adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers,” he added.