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BRUSSELS—Google owner Alphabet Inc. accused European Union regulators of making an unexplained about-face in their decision to file antitrust charges against the U.S. search giant, and warned that there was "no basis" for imposing fines, according to a redacted copy of Google's response seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The response, which runs to almost 130 pages and leans heavily on legal opinions and case law, suggests that Google is gearing up for a protracted legal battle against the charges brought by the European Commission.

"The theory on which the [EU's] preliminary conclusions rest is so ambiguous that the Commission itself concluded three times that the concern had been resolved," Google's lawyers wrote in the document. The document was recently sent to complainants in the case following heavy editing to remove commercially sensitive material.

The EU's demands, Google argues, amount "to a demand that we sacrifice quality to subsidize competitors."

EU regulators in April became the first globally to file formal antitrust charges against Google, accusing the search giant of skewing search results to favor its own comparison-shopping service. The move followed a five-year investigation during which the EU sought, and failed, three times to settle with Google.

The EU warned that Google could face substantial fines and called on the company to use the "same underlying processes and methods" when presenting rival comparison-shopping services on its search page, according to people who have seen the EU's charge sheet. Fines could theoretically amount to 10% of the company's revenue, which in 2014 amounted to $66 billion.

In its response, Google rebuffed those demands and claimed that the EU had no basis to impose fines.

"The Commission itself previously found that a requirement that Google should apply the same algorithm to rank all search results including its own would not be indispensable to remedy the competition concerns," the document says, citing a note sent by the EU's former antitrust chief Joaquí n Almunia to his fellow commissioners.

The document highlights Mr. Almunia's announcement in January 2014 that a third settlement proposal from Google was "capable of addressing [the EU's] competition concerns," as well as the EU's decision to send letters to complainants later that year to reject their concerns about the settlement.

The EU changed tack in September 2014, warning Google that its proposed settlement wasn't sufficient and the company must offer more.

"If the Commission decides to end the commitment process it must therefore provide reasons for the change in position," the document says. It argues that the EU "has not provided substantiated reasons as to why it found the January 2014 commitments insufficient."

Google also questions the EU's legal justification for demanding that Google change its algorithms to treat comparison-shopping rivals equally in search results. To do so, Google argues, the EU would need to show that its results are as essential as a public utility.

"The only legal framework that could apply here for a finding of abuse is the framework for a duty to supply," the document says. "But the [charge sheet] does not (and cannot) establish the legal conditions for such a duty."

The EU shouldn't impose a fine, the document argues, because the case rests on a novel legal theory, and Google participated in settlement negotiations in good faith.

"There is no precedent for characterizing Google's conduct as an illegal abuse," the document says. "The rules must be knowable in advance."

The document expands on Google's earlier arguments that the EU erred in its analysis of the fast-changing online-shopping business and failed to account for the fast growth of companies like Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc.

"Users have a huge—and expanding—array of options when searching for products," the document says. "The [EU's charge sheet] misses hundreds of other aggregators and ignores the remarkable success of merchant platforms like Amazon and eBay."

It cites a legal opinion from Professor Carl Shapiro, a former senior economist in the Justice Department's antitrust division, that "merchant platforms are a powerful competitive threat to aggregation only comparison shopping sites."

It could be another year or more until the EU makes a decision in the case, and that could be challenged in the EU's appeals courts in Brussels, a process that could take more than five years.

A Google spokesman declined to comment.

Write to Tom Fairless at tom.fairless@wsj.com and Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 02, 2015 13:25 ET (18:25 GMT)

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