BRUSSELS—Google Inc. hasn't yet responded to European Union
charges that the U.S. company skews search results to favor its own
comparison-shopping service, the bloc's antitrust chief Margrethe
Vestager said on Wednesday.
EU antitrust cops charged Google with violating the bloc's laws
in mid-April and gave the company ten weeks to respond to the
allegations, escalating a five-year-old investigation.
Those ten weeks have now elapsed, but Google still has time to
respond because it wasn't immediately granted access to the EU's
case documents, Ms. Vestager said at a news conference.
"The deadline is still running, [we are] counting from the day
when Google had access to the file," Ms. Vestager said.
Google can ask for an extension and may also request a hearing
in front of regulators to better make its case.
Ms. Vestager also declined to give a new deadline for decisions
in her agency's high-profile tax investigations, which have
ensnared at least four multinational companies including Apple Inc.
and Amazon.com Inc.
The EU is investigating whether the companies may have benefited
from illegal tax breaks. Regulators had initially pledged to rule
on the cases by June, but admitted last month they would miss that
deadline.
"There's no new deadline but we work as fast as we can," since
the investigations are "an inconvenience" for the companies and
countries involved, Ms. Vestager said.
The cases could potentially lead to sizable back-tax payments by
the companies concerned. Ms. Vestager said her priority was to
produce "truly qualified casework" rather than to hit a
deadline.
Write to Tom Fairless at tom.fairless@wsj.com
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