French court upholds order for Google to pay news companies

The Paris Court of Appeal rejected a challenge by the U.S. tech company, which had refused to comply with an order by France's competition authority to negotiate with publishers and press agencies for payments to display their material. The court rejected Google's argument that the competition watchdog overstepped its authority in its April decision.

A French appeals court on Thursday upheld an order for Google to pay media companies to show their news content in search results. The Paris Court of Appeal rejected a challenge by the U.S. tech company, which had refused to comply with an order by France's competition authority to negotiate with publishers and press agencies for payments to display their material.

The court rejected Google's argument that the competition watchdog overstepped its authority in its April decision. Google had said the day before that it was on the verge of reaching a deal with French newspapers over digital copyright.

“Our priority remains to reach an agreement with the French publishers and press agencies,” the company said. "We appealed to get legal clarity on some parts of the order, and we will now review the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal.” France became the first European Union country last year to adopt a directive aimed at modernising copyright rules into national law, including a requirement that search engines pay for offering up snippets of news articles. News companies had pushed for the new rules amid slumping revenue at traditional media organisations but Google balked.

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