According to a court document, a Brazilian court recently rejected claims by shopping comparison site Buscapé that Google is a monopoly, and essentially does not conduct its business in a way that is fair to competitors. We talked about this here, linking to a Search Engine Land post, which shared the actual document via Scribd.
Today, a spokesperson for Buscapé reached out to WebProNews to share the following statement about a private lawsuit. The company has posted to its site:
“The 18th Civil Court of the São Paulo Central Jurisdiction is processing, under court secrecy, a civil claim for loss and damage filed by Buscapé against Google.
Interestingly, and in spite of the confidentiality ruling handed down by the applicable Judge at the request of Google itself in its defense, the lower court decision has been posted, in English, on Search Engine Land, a website specializing in Internet searches. The document comprising the entire decision was also posted, apparently by the same author of the mentioned article, on scribd.com. The document’s properties show the name of Google Brazil’s General Counsel as the author of the file, possible evidence of a breach of the ruling handed down by the Brazilian court.
Buscapé regrets the disrespect to the Brazilian legislation, to the court ruling, and the fact that a lower court decision has been treated as final or misrepresented as if it were the formal compliant being examined by CADE, the Brazilian competition authority.”
Buscapé is currently requesting that the judge take the appropriated measures regarding the leak of information.