Geradin Partners represents Trivago in a competition damages claim against Google in Germany

Geradin Partners represents Trivago in a competition damages claim against Google in Germany

On May 5th, 2026, Trivago, supported by Geradin Partners, filed a damages claim against Google before the Regional Court of Hamburg, Germany. Specifically, trivago contends that Google has been systematically favouring its own hotel metasearch service in its general search results pages, to the detriment of competing services such as trivago. 

The claim covers the period from January 2014 through December 2025 and seeks substantial monetary damages based on an independent expert analysis provided by E.CA. The claim further seeks disclosure of relevant traffic and revenue data held by Google, as well as a declaratory judgment establishing Google’s liability for damages from January 2026 onward.

About trivago

trivago N.V. (NASDAQ: TRVG) is a leading global hotel search and price comparison platform, and one of the most recognized travel brands in the world. When travellers search for a hotel, trivago wants to be their obvious choice. trivago helps them find the best place to stay and deliver the best deal to book, saving them time and money — so every traveller feels smart and confident about their booking. Powered by AI, trivago personalises and simplifies hotel search for millions of travellers, connecting them with more than 7.0 million hotels and other accommodations across more than 190 countries.

About Geradin Partners 

Geradin Partners is an independent pan-European law firm specialising in competition law, litigation and digital regulation. Amongst its complex litigation matters, Geradin Partners represents several specialised search services, including over a dozen comparison shopping services, in damages claims across Europe, following the European Commission’s 2017 Google Search (Shopping) decision. The total amount claimed exceeds EUR 6 billion. This includes acting as co-counsel for idealo and representing Producto in litigation that led to awards of EUR 465 million and EUR 107 million in damages, respectively, in Germany in November 2025 – the highest antitrust damages awards ever granted by a German court. 

Contact: Thomas Höppner

Geradin Partners receives six nominations at the GCR Awards 2026

Geradin Partners is pleased to share that the firm has received six nominations at the 2026 Global Competition Review (GCR) Awards. Voting is now open.

Lawyer of the Year

Damien Geradin has been nominated for this individual award. In 2025, Damien has acted in multiple DG COMP investigations for both defendants and complainants (including a matter also nominated for Matter of the Year), four collective actions before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and additional competition litigation in France and the Netherlands. His work spans four jurisdictions and includes both contentious and non-contentious matters, as well as issues relating to the Digital Markets Act.

Regional Firm of the Year

Geradin Partners continued its growth in 2025, welcoming six new partners and 25 lawyers, and opening two offices in Germany. The firm begins 2026 with 19 antitrust partners and a total of 65 competition lawyers and advisors across seven offices in six countries. Over the past year, the team has been involved in a number of significant matters across jurisdictions, including those listed below.

Litigation of the Year – Non-Cartel Prosecution

Idealo & Producto v Google
Thomas Hoppner and Johannes Wick represented Idealo and Producto, securing €600 million in damages.

Behavioural Matter of the Year – Europe

Geradin Partners has received three nominations in this category:

Corning – European Commission investigation
Trevor Soames and Stijn Huijts represented Corning as defendant.

Google AdTech – European Commission investigation
Damien Geradin represented complainant EPC, and Thomas Hoppner represented several intervening associations.

Microsoft Teams settlement
Trevor Soames represented complainant Salesforce, and Philipp Westerhoff represented alfaview.

We are grateful for this recognition of our team’s work across Europe and thank our clients for their continued trust.

Geradin Partners secures 3 Concurrences Writing Awards nominations

Leading antitrust publication Concurrences has shortlisted three Geradin Partners-written articles for its prestigious Antitrust Writing Awards. The awards recognise scholarship, originality, and practical impact in competition law. The articles have been selected from more than 1,500 submissions across academic, business, and soft law categories. Here are the shortlisted articles:

  • Daniel Mandrescu, Designing (restorative) remedies for abuses of dominance by online platforms, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, Volume 13, Issue 2, July 2025
  • Konstantina Bania, US/EU relations and the digital regulation acquis: bridging the gap, The Platform Law Blog, February 2025
  • Marc Barennes and Jack Frippart, The ASG 2 ruling: the Court of Justice of the EU confirms the right of consumers and undertakings to bundle their damages claims in the absence of a collective action mechanism.

Geradin Partners ranked in Global Competition Review across 4 jurisdictions

Geradin Partners, the specialist competition, regulatory and litigation firm, was recognised in the Global Competition Review’s “GCR 100” rankings for four of the jurisdictions in which it is active, a unique achievement for our growing firm. 

In Brussels, the firm is Recommended, along with several long-standing EU practices of large international law firms. GCR highlights the firm’s defence work for Corning Incorporated, for which it secured a commitments decision in July 2025. In addition, GCR commends the firm’s representation of Salesforce and Slack in its abuse of dominance complaint against Microsoft, which resulted in the commission confirming a commitments package in September 2025, and of the European Publishers Council in its long-running complaint against Google’s ad tech practices, with the commission issuing a €2.95 billion fine against the company in September 2025.

The firm’s London office is also Recommended, with GCR recognising its work for major tech and media clients, including Bloomsbury Publishing, Bauer Media, and the Daily Mail, on the UK and EU’s evolving digital regulation regimes. GCR also mentions the firm’s work counselling Mustafa Suleyman and the team hired from AI startup Inflection by Microsoft in a CMA probe examining whether the recruitment strategy constituted a merger and its advice to remedy taker Precis in Schlumberger’s $7.8 billion acquisition of ChampionX. Finally, GCR commends the team’s thriving competition litigation practice, advising four class representatives in separate high-stakes collective actions against Google and Amazon worth billions of pounds. 

In the Netherlands, the firm is Highly Recommended, noting the work done for 34 European news media companies in a €2.1 billion follow-on damages claim against Google for alleged ad tech abuses. GCR also highlights the firm’s representation of Stichting Massaschade & Consument in a lawsuit against Sony over alleged anticompetitive practices relating to the PlayStation Store. In merger control, GCR recognises the firm’s assistance to Foresco in winning unconditional ACM approval in Phase II in February 2025 for its purchases of DWP and Vierhouten.

In Finland, the firm is Recommended, with GCR flagging the firm’s work advising Kierrätysteollisuus on potentially anticompetitive practices by municipality-owned waste management companies, with a focus on competitive neutrality and proposed legislative reforms. GCR also recognises the team’s advice to Medialiitto in a state aid matter concerning public broadcaster Yleisradio.

The GCR100 is Global Competition Review’s comprehensive listing of the world’s best competition practices. It features firms in 61 jurisdictions across all six inhabited continents. We are grateful to our clients for the positive feedback provided to GCR in the process of preparing these rankings. 

Separately, Damian Collins OBE who leads the firm’s public affairs practice has been ranked in the top 10 political consultants in the UK by Mace Magazine.  The magazine labels Damian as “The Tech Guru” and says “Clever, calm and respected on all sides of the political divide, Collins served as tech minister and chair of the Commons DCMS Select Committee, leading high-profile inquiries into social media disinformation and the impact of addictive and immersive technologies.”

Geradin Partners assists SIDN in refusal to supply procedure

Geradin Partners successfully represented SIDN, the registry of the .nl domain name, in administrative proceedings before the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal in The Hague (CBb). In addition to registry activities, SIDN provides domain security services to businesses. Dataprovider, a competing provider of domain security services, requested access to a large database that SIDN has assembled in its capacity as the .nl  domain name registry. SIDN refused this request, pointing inter alia to safety concerns. Dataprovider subsequently filed a complaint with the Dutch Competition Authority (ACM), claiming that by refusing access to its database SIDN abused its dominant position as registry. The ACM rejected this complaint because it considered that the so-called Bronner-criteria had not been met. These criteria are applied to determine if a refusal by a dominant company to provide access to a certain input or facility qualifies as an abuse of a dominant position. The ACM noted that despite SIDN’s refusal to provide access to its database, Dataprovider is able to provide domain security services to a large number of international clients. Access to the database is therefore a “nice to have” but not indispensable; indispensability being one of the criteria that must be met under the Bronner-test. This decision was confirmed by the Rotterdam district court in first instance. 

Dataprovider appealed the district court’s ruling before the CBb. In the court hearing, the CBb expressed doubts on the application of the Bronner-criteria. It questioned whether these criteria should be applied to SIDN’s refusal to provide access to its database, since SIDN has built and financed this database with a different commercial activity (i.e. as a registry) than the one where it meets Dataprovider as a competitor (i.e. domain security services). Therefore, it discussed with the parties the possibility that the economic rationale behind the Bronner-criteria may not apply to this case. We successfully argued that such a restrictive approach cannot be based on the case law, and the principle of contractual freedom and the need to protect SIDN’s incentive to invest in its databases are still valid in this case. In addition, we suggested that if the CBb wanted to adopt this new, restrictive approach, it should first raise preliminary questions to the ECJ. Ultimately, the CBb sided with the ACM and SIDN and confirmed that SIDN’s refusal to supply must be assessed under the Bronner-criteria. Dataprovider’s appeal was therefore rejected. The CBb’s judgment (in Dutch) can be accessed here.

Contacts:

Mattijs Baneke: mbaneke@geradinpartners.com

Ruben Elkerbout: relkerbout@geradinpartners.com

Geradin Partners assists Global Food Group in cartel procedure before the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal

Geradin Partners has filed an appeal with the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (CBb) on behalf of Global Food Group, an egg product manufacturer, in a cartel sanction procedure initiated by the Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM). In 2019, the ACM launched an investigation into a possible purchasing cartel between several egg product manufacturers, including Global Food Group. This investigation resulted in fines being imposed on all manufacturers.

All manufacturers filed objections against these fines with the ACM and subsequently appealed the ACM’s decision on objection before the Rotterdam district court. The Rotterdam district court rejected the manufacturer’s appeals and upheld the ACM’s decision. The district court’s judgment is now appealed before the CBb by Global Food Group and the other manufacturers.

Contacts:

Mattijs Baneke: mbaneke@geradinpartners.com

Ruben Elkerbout: relkerbout@geradinpartners.com

Geradin Partners wins GCR European law firm of the year award

Geradin Partners is delighted to have won the Global Competition Review award for Regional Firm of the year: Europe in Washington, D.C., yesterday. The award is a recognition of the growth of our firm, the high profile matters we are engaged in, and the results we deliver for our clients. Partners Damien Geradin, Trevor Soames and StijnHuijts were in Washington to receive the award. We are grateful to our clients and peers who voted for us. 

Geradin Partners recommended in three jurisdictions in leading competition law directory GCR 100

13 December 2024

Geradin Partners is delighted to be recommended in the GCR 100 list of top competition law firms in Brussels, London and Amsterdam. After several consecutive listings for its Brussels office, this marks the first time the firm obtains listings in London and Amsterdam, a recognition of its growing presence in the UK and Netherlands jurisdictions. We are grateful to our clients for their confidence in our firm. 

The Geradin Partners entries read as follows:

Brussels: GERADIN PARTNERS is involved in some cutting-edge mandates before the European Commission, including advising Match Group on its complaint against Apple’s App Store practices and defends Corning in a commission abuse of dominance investigation, with the agency inviting feedback from third parties on proposed commitments in November 2024. The firm also represents the European Publishers Council on its EU complaint challenging Google’s ad tech practices. The commission sent Google a statement of objections in June 2023. The firm is additionally involved in an EU no-poach investigation on behalf of a confidential client and advises several blue-chip companies on competition law issues.

London: Damien Geradin and Tom Smith lead the UK competition team at GERADIN PARTNERS, which has expanded significantly in past years. Anthony Ojukwu joined as counsel from the Competition and Markets Authority in September 2023, while David Gallagher was promoted to partner in January 2024. Geradin Partners acts for Sean Ennis as the class representative in a collective action seeking damages on behalf of around 1,566 UK app creators alleging that Apple abused its dominance by charging developers an excessive “creator tax”. The CAT dismissed Apple’s application to strike out the action in April 2024 and certified the claim in September. The firm also advises a class of UK online publishers in a £13.6 billion opt-out class action claim against Google’s ad tech practices. The CAT consolidated the claim with a competing class action in September 2023 and certified it in June 2024. Epic Games has also tapped the firm to advise on various competition issues.

Amsterdam: GERADIN PARTNERS’ Dutch competition practice is led by partners Stijn Huijts and Ruben Elkerbout. The latter joined the firm from Stek in January 2024, launching the Amsterdam office. In merger control, the practice is advising Foresco Packaging in the ACM’s in-depth probe of its planned takeover of two smaller rivals, which features a novel analysis on whether the deal could further the dominance the company obtained through a series of below-threshold acquisitions. In litigation work, Elkerbout continues to defend the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) against claims from Pro-Agent, EFAA and two football agents that FIFA’s Football Agents Regulations and the KNVB are in breach of competition law. 

Interview with Sir Paul Tucker

Geradin Partners had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Paul Tucker, who was at the Bank of England for decades including during the financial crisis and was deputy governor from 2009 to late 2013 and has since been a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. His 2018 book “Unelected Power” focused in particular on central banks and competition authorities. Sir Paul writes much more broadly these days, but still has things to say about central banking and financial stability and also about competition policy and the legitimacy of decision making by independent expert bodies. In our interview we discuss issues including the legitimacy of the new Digital Markets Unit (DMU) in the UK, risks around regulatory capture, the role of UK judges in developing competition policy , the privatisation of competition law enforcement, as well as Sir Paul’s view on the Bork v Brandeis debate. It is a thought-provoking read on the political economy of antitrust enforcement.

The full interview is on The Platform Law Blog, the firm’s blog about competition, regulation and privacy in the digital era.