Google has asked the EU's General Court in Luxembourg to suspend a regulatory order requiring the company to open its search infrastructure to rival search engines and AI chatbot providers, The Economic Times reported.

The request for interim relief targets obligations the European Commission imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the bloc's 2022 competition rulebook for large online platforms. The DMA bars designated "gatekeeper" platforms from favouring their own services and obliges them to expose certain features to third parties on fair terms.

The Commission designated Google as a gatekeeper in September 2023 across several core platform services, including Google Search, Google Play, Chrome, YouTube, Android, Google Maps, Google Shopping and Google Ads. Subsequent Commission decisions have faulted the company for self-preferencing its own vertical search results and AI integrations over those of competitors.

What is Google asking the court to do?

Google's filing asks the General Court to pause the contested measures while the company pursues its main action for annulment. Under the EU's Rules of Procedure, an application for interim measures must establish three cumulative conditions:

• The application is factually and legally arguable (fumus boni iuris)
• The matter is urgent
• Serious and irreparable harm would result absent a stay

A panel of three judges typically decides the application by reasoned order, often within weeks to a few months of filing. The court weighs the applicant's interest in preserving the status quo against the regulator's interest in prompt enforcement.

What changes if the court grants the suspension?

If the General Court grants the stay, Google can keep its current product surface in place while the substantive case proceeds. EU litigation at first instance commonly runs 18 to 24 months to judgment.

If the court refuses, Google must comply with the contested obligations during the litigation, including any deadline for opening its index to third parties. Under the DMA, fines can reach up to 10% of global annual turnover and up to 20% for repeated infringements.

Why the AI dimension matters

The order sits at the intersection of two fast-moving areas of EU regulation: search competition and generative AI. The Commission has examined whether Google routes user queries toward its own Gemini AI assistant at the expense of standalone AI chatbot services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Mistral's Le Chat.

Rival search engines, including DuckDuckGo, Brave and Ecosia, have separately complained to the Commission that Google's preferred placement of AI-generated summaries above traditional blue links harms their traffic and revenue. The Commission's order, as described in the report, would require Google to expose its search index and ranking signals to qualifying third parties under non-discriminatory conditions.

What practitioners should watch

Three procedural points stand out for advisers:

• Interim-measures applications under the EU's Rules of Procedure require the applicant to show urgency, arguable case and irreparable harm.
• A successful stay applicant typically posts a bond or undertakes to compensate counterparties harmed if the order is later set aside.
• Interim orders are appealable to the Court of Justice only on points of law, and such appeals rarely succeed.

The General Court has not yet assigned a case number to the suspension request, according to the report. The Commission's preliminary findings in March 2024 covered Google's "Google Search" services, with follow-on decisions on Android, Play and Chrome each carrying separate compliance deadlines and separate financial penalties.

For Google, the substantive proceedings will likely become a test of how the DMA's Article 6 interoperability obligations and Article 18 anti-self-preferencing rule apply when AI assistants, not just traditional search verticals, compete for the same user query. The outcome will shape how European users discover — and pay for — generative AI services over the next several years.