The parallel claims by Arthur, a British journalist, and Pollack, a former director of the Office of Communications — the communications watchdog Ofcom — alleged that Google’s anticompetitive actions had caused rivals to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds in profits since 2014.
Google’s stranglehold on the U.K.’s ad tech market has allowed the technology giant to unlawfully restrict competition by favoring its own services, the claims allege. This has caused rivals to lose up to 19% of the revenue they would have otherwise received since 2014, they claim.
The tribunal also concluded that Ad Tech’s methodology for proving that any damage was caused by Google’s alleged abuse of its market dominance is sufficient for the case to go to trial. The CAT might decide at trial that only some of the alleged abuses were made out, “and it would be necessary to have a methodology robust enough to deal with that outcome,” according to the decision.
But the panel — on which Judge Smith was joined by lay members Maria Maher and John Alty — concluded that Ad Tech and its expert had considered that scenario and that it is not necessary to state “each and every combination of failure or success” at trial in the pleadings or expert report.
