A question mark in the Google Shopping case at the General Court

The hearings at the General Court in the Google Shopping case are now in full swing and, as expected, tensions are running high for all those involved in this landmark case of the European Commission.

While firm pronouncements are not a surprise when they come from the plaintiff and the interested parties, bold statements from judges sitting in the panel are out of the ordinary.

I refer to the repeated criticisms with regard to Google by Irish judge Colm Mac Eochaidh , who missed no opportunity so far to slam the tech giant, openly, in the court, at a moment where judges are supposed to listen to the arguments of the parties, objectively and impartially and any considerations are supposed to be kept for themselves at this stage.

The notion of a fair trial and the underpinning principle of the justice presuppose that judges do not make personal considerations during the hearings and never transform into accusers.

This is not the case for judge Eochaidh, who made two statements already, which put his objectivity in doubt. In the second day of the hearings, judge Eochaidh expressed abruptly his view over the matter – ”For me, this case really is visibility. This is a very important point in the case. It is perfectly apparent what has happened is this: you have promoted your own service and demoted that of others. That is a clear infraction”, while in the 3rd day he came on to say that the amount of the fine cannot be considered disproportionate, as long as ”You (Alphabet) are one of the richest companies in the world. Would you miss the 2.4 billion euros?”. This is pure cynism.

I believe things went a little bit too far with such bold statements and they risk putting in doubt the due process at the European Union’s highest court and the trust in the outcome of the court proceedings. Judges and other public officials should keep their personal beliefs and convictions for themselves and have a neutral stance in any matter in which they are called to decide until the final ruling is out.

The European Commission has been already criticized for its preference to aim at the US technology giants so that no suspicion of bias should be added at the level of the General Court. In the end, the decision of the judges at the European Court of Justice in this matter must be both well balanced and credible, so that it provides the right lesson to the alleged infringer and to the other platforms who dominate the landscape of the digital economy.