Gide and Cleary act as Google faces court challenge from Twenga

Twenga filed the complaint before the European Commission on 23 January, alleging that Google is abusing its dominant position in the search and search advertising market.

Gide Paris partner Yann Utzschneider and Brussels partners Laurent Godfroid and Ségolène Pelsy are leading the work for Twenga.

Meanwhile, Google’s long-standing competition adviser Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has been brought in, with partners Maurits Dolmans and Thomas Graf handling the matter in Brussels.

The complaint alleges that Google favours its own “vertical services” in its search results to the detriment of its competitors, and also that its advertising platform Adwords is associated with “anti-competitive practices”.

Google has been hit by a number of similar complaints over the past year and the Commission is in the process of considering these.