BRUSSELS: European Union regulators will actively pursue Google parent Alphabet Inc. on multiple fronts ranging from its contracts with advertisers to its Android mobile-operating system, the bloc’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said, in the clearest sign yet that the U.S. search giant is likely to face fresh competition charges in Brussels.
In an interview, Ms. Vestager also hinted that a compromise is possible with Russian energy company OAO Gazprom, which the EU has charged with hindering competition in Eastern European gas markets, and expressed skepticism over claims that Europe’s telecommunications operators need to merge.
A year after taking office as Europe’s most powerful regulator, Ms. Vestager has moved decisively on a number of major cases that had languished under her predecessor, Joaquín Almunia of Spain.
She has shaken the corporate world several times in her first year, most recently last week with twin decisions, one affecting Starbucks Corp. that cast doubt on thousands of tax structures and launching a sweeping inquiry into online commerce that has embroiled Amazon.com Inc. and others. But she has also played a deft hand, flying to the U.S. immediately after her Google decision in April to defend that action publicly, and waving through large mergers for General Electric Co. and FedEx Corp. that had initially raised concerns.
Above all, Google’s owner has found itself in the new commissioner’s cross hairs. In April, Ms. Vestager became the first antitrust regulator globally to file formal charges against the U.S. search giant.
I do not think of it as one Google case but literally as different investigations and different cases,” Ms. Vestager said. “What they have in common is that the name Google appears in each one, but apart from that they are very different.”
After a five-year investigation that touched numerous parts of Google’s business, the EU’s eventual charges against Google in April were unexpectedly narrow, focused exclusively on its comparison-shopping service. Experts have suggested that the EU might seek to close that case before filing any fresh charges.
But Ms. Vestager indicated that she viewed other lines of inquiry as equally important. The comparison-shopping case “is high priority but it will take some time,” she said. “We have Google’s answer and now we’re analyzing that.”
She warned that a ruling in that case might not be easily applied to related markets that the EU is also examining, indicating that fresh charges could be necessary.
