Google Has Lost EU Appeal Against $4.7 Billion Android Antitrust Fine

Google’s parent Alphabet lost its final appeal on Thursday against a European Union antitrust penalty of 4.1 billion euros ($4.67 billion), bringing to an end one of the bloc’s biggest competition cases against the U.S. technology giant.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court, upholds a 2022 decision by a lower tribunal that largely backed the European Commission’s findings that Google abused the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to give an unfair advantage to its own apps through pre-installation agreements with smartphone makers.

“The Court of Justice dismisses the appeal brought by Google and Alphabet against that judgment of the General Court, thereby confirming the penalty imposed on them, as revised by the General Court, for their anticompetitive practices relating to the Android operating system,” the ECJ said in a press release.

The decision is final and cannot be appealed.

Shares of Alphabet were down about 1% in premarket trading.

The European Commission imposed the record 4.34 billion euro fine in 2018, saying Google had illegally used Android’s market dominance to strengthen its search engine business. In 2022, the General Court reduced the penalty to 4.1 billion euros while largely upholding the Commission’s findings.

Google said Android had benefited consumers and businesses.

“Android provides more choice for everyone and supports thousands of businesses. This judgment fails to recognize our significant investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free,” a Google spokesperson said.

“In any event, we adapted our agreements to comply with the initial decision back in 2018 and we remain focused on continued innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers.”

Google has made changes to Android in Europe over the years, including allowing users to choose alternative search engines and web browsers.

The Android case is one of several antitrust investigations pursued by the European Commission against Google over the past decade. Last year, the Commission fined the company 2.95 billion euros over anti-competitive practices in its advertising technology business.

The EU has increasingly shifted its focus from traditional competition enforcement to new digital regulations under the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which also apply to companies including Apple and Meta.

“The decision itself is particularly important in so far as it represents the end of what might be termed the European Commission’s ‘first stage’ battle with big tech, that is the use of its competition law powers to deal with the behaviour of the Big Tech companies in terms of stifling competition on EU markets,” Alex Haffner, partner at Fladgate, said.

“More recently, the Commission’s focus has switched to the legislative tools at its disposal, particularly the Digital Services Act, to regulat Big Tech and it’s likely therefore that this will be the regulatory focus moving forward.”

The EU’s regulation of U.S. technology companies has drawn criticism from President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials. Last month, Trump threatened to impose a “100% TARIFF” on goods from countries that levy digital services taxes on U.S. companies, including France and Spain.

In March, U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder said Europe “can’t over regulate” and impose “huge fines” if it wants to compete in the artificial intelligence economy.

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