The claim will attempt to recover revenue lost from anti-competitive behaviour in the ad market over several years.
Humphries Kerstetter, a law firm, will bring a €7bn UK case to the competition appeal tribunal in October. In May, the Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into Google’s practices in ad tech, following launch of probe into Google and Meta’s ‘Jedi Blue’ agreement.
An EU suit is being brought in the Netherlands; both cases are being financed by litigation funding funds, which will take a portion of any proceeds. The UK case will be opt-out, which means that publishers will automatically be claimants.
A partner at Humphries Kerstetter, Toby Starr, emphasised that the case will not just look to benefit core news and current affairs websites.
He said: "This important claim will represent a class of victims of Google’s anti-competitive conduct in ad tech who have collectively lost an estimated £7bn. This includes news websites up and down the country with large daily readerships as well as the thousands of small business owners who depend on advertising revenue – be it from their fishing website, food blog, football fanzine or other online content they have spent time creating and publishing."
Google has stated it will fight the case vigorously.