Google just got handed a bill that makes even a tech giant wince. The Stockholm Patent and Market Court ordered Alphabet to pay Klarna’s subsidiary PriceRunner approximately $1.5 billion, or 14.3 billion Swedish kronor, in antitrust damages. It is the largest competition-related award ever granted by a Swedish court.

The ruling, issued on July 1, caps a legal saga that stretches back nearly a decade to when European regulators first flagged Google’s habit of putting its thumb on the scale in search results. For Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later company that acquired PriceRunner in 2022, this is a massive financial windfall.

The case against Google’s shopping favoritism

The foundation of this lawsuit was laid in 2017, when the European Commission found that Google had been systematically favoring its own comparison shopping service in search results. When you searched for a product on Google, the company’s own shopping tool got prime real estate at the top of the page, while competitors like PriceRunner got buried further down in results.

That EU finding opened the door for companies harmed by Google’s practices to seek damages in national courts. PriceRunner, a price comparison platform popular in Scandinavia, was among those that stepped up.

Klarna acquired PriceRunner in 2022, inheriting the legal claim along with the business. The company then filed suit seeking approximately $8.3 billion in damages, arguing that Google’s anti-competitive behavior had starved PriceRunner of traffic and revenue for years.

The trial itself took place in late 2025, with both sides presenting their cases before the Stockholm Patent and Market Court. The court ultimately found in PriceRunner’s favor, concluding that Google’s practice of privileging its own shopping service had caused significant economic harm to the comparison shopping platform.

While $1.5 billion is a staggering number, it represents roughly 18% of what PriceRunner originally asked for. The court clearly agreed that Google caused damage but applied a far more conservative valuation of that harm than Klarna’s legal team had hoped.

What $1.5 billion means for Klarna and Alphabet

For Klarna, the math is straightforward. A $1.5 billion damages award is a significant injection of capital for a company that went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLAR. Investors noticed immediately. Klarna shares rose approximately 6% following the announcement of the ruling.

Alphabet will almost certainly appeal the decision, which means the final resolution could be years away. In antitrust litigation of this magnitude, the appeals process often reshapes or reduces initial awards, and investors should factor in the possibility that the actual payout could look different from what the court ordered.