Google fights back; is that a smoke of a long legal battle?

A long legal battle might be brewing, it has been confirmed that Alphabet has just fired back against European Union officials. Google's owner, Alphabet Inc., has sent an almost 130 page response to the European Union regulators against the charges they have filed against the giant firm.

The response has accused the EU officials of making an about-face in their decision that was to file antitrust charges against Google without any explanations. From a redacted copy of Alphabet Inc.'s response seen by The Wall Street Journal, they also warned the European Union officials that imposing fines which is reported to be 6.6 billion USD has no basis.

Google's lawyers has written in the response that the theory where the EU officials rest their conclusions is so vague that the concern has been concluded three times by the Commission to be already resolved. According to Google, the demands the European Union regulators have can be deduced as a demand for them to sacrifice quality just to subsidize their competitors.

The response sent by Google also leans heavily on legal opinions and case law which suggests that they might be preparing for a lengthened legal battle against the charges they were brought by the EU officials. It came after earlier this year in April the European Union officials became the first to globally file formal antitrust charges against Google.

The charges against Google accuse the search giant of twisting their search results to favour their own comparison shopping service. It was followed by a five year investigation which the European Union regulators sought but failed three times to settle with the giant firm Google.

Earlier in October, the bloc's antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said that they (EU regulators) will actively pursue Google's parent/owner Alphabet Inc. on multiple fronts which includes their Android mobile operating system to their contracts with advertisers, these statements clearly indicates that they are willing to pursue Google until such time that they win the case or if a reasonable compromise has been reached.