US Tech Firms Feel the Heat in Europe

The European Union’s antitrust watchdog has handed down a string of big decisions in recent years against top US technology firms, in what might look to US companies and officials like a trend by Brussels to train investigations on large American companies.

EU officials deny any bias. “We don’t go against Google because it’s an American company but because it’s a company abusing its dominant position in our market.… If it were in Brazil, we wouldn’t care,” a senior EU official said, referring to the EU’s €2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) fine June 27 against Google for unfairly favoring its shopping ads in its search results. EU competition officials are, to a large extent, constrained by antitrust rules and legal precedents when making decisions against any companies, be they American, European or otherwise. But unlike Washington, where U.S. enforcers need to prove their cases before a judge, the EU’s competition directorate acts as prosecutor, judge and jury in competition cases—and only needs to convince itself. Experts say American tech companies are currently getting increased scrutiny because they happen to dominate the industry. This comes at a time when one of the top priorities for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, is to ensure the EU’s common market functions more efficiently online and across borders.