Alphabet’s Google is at the centre of a class action lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

The lawsuit is suing Google for over £5 billion ($6.6 billion) in potential damages in the UK over allegations that the US tech giant abused its “near-total dominance” in the online search market to drive up prices.

It should be remembered that Google is already contending with a number of regulatory headaches, including a potential breakup of its business in the United States.

Regulatory issues

Then in January 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it had launched an “investigation to determine if Google has strategic market status in search and search advertising activities and whether these services are delivering good outcomes for people and businesses in the UK.”

That came after the CMA provisionally found in September 2024 that Google had abused its market dominance in advertising technology to favour its own ad tech services in open display advertising.

Now the class action lawsuit filed against Google at the UK’s CAT alleges that Google has been shutting out competition through contracting phone makers to pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser on Android devices, as well as paying Apple to make it the default search engine on iPhones.

Search lawsuit

The claim also alleges that Google has ensured its search engine offers better functionality and more features for Google’s own advertising offering than that of its competitors.

The lawsuit against Google is being brought by competition law academic Dr Or Brook on behalf of hundreds of thousands of UK-based organisations that used Google’s search advertising services from 1 January 2011, up until when the claim was filed.

Dr Brook is represented by law firm Geradin Partners.

“Today, UK businesses and organisations, big or small, have almost no choice but to use Google ads to advertise their products and services,” Brook said in a statement Tuesday. “Regulators around the world have described Google as a monopoly and securing a spot on Google’s top pages is essential for visibility.

“Google has been leveraging its dominance in the general search and search advertising market to overcharge advertisers,” she added. “This class action is about holding Google accountable for its unlawful practices and seeking compensation on behalf of UK advertisers who have been overcharged.”