Google has been ordered to pay a record €4.125 billion ($4.67 billion) antitrust fine after the European Union’s highest court dismissed the tech giant’s appeal over anti-competitive practices linked to its Android operating system.
The European Commission originally imposed a €4.34 billion fine in 2018, accusing the company of restricting competition through practices that cemented its dominance in online search.
The penalty was later reduced to €4.125 billion by the EU’s General Court in 2022, prompting Google to appeal.
However, the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, dismissed the appeal, effectively confirming the reduced fine.
The Court of Justice of the European Union delivered the ruling on Thursday, upholding a lower court’s decision that largely backed the European Commission’s findings that Google abused Android’s market dominance by requiring smartphone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome.
“The appeal brought by Google and its parent company, Alphabet, against the judgment of the General Court is dismissed, thereby confirming the penalty imposed for Google’s abuse of a dominant position in the context of the Android operating system,” the judges said.
Google maintained that the case was unfounded, arguing that the penalty punished innovation and that Android users remained free to download competing apps.
“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,” the company said in a statement.
Google has previously argued that EU regulators were overlooking similar practices by Apple, which pre-installs its own services on iPhones.
The ruling is the latest in a series of antitrust battles between Google and the European Union. Between 2017 and 2019, the bloc fined the company more than €8 billion for competition law violations.
The EU is also pursuing several investigations into major technology companies under its Digital Markets Act (DMA), with Thursday’s judgment expected to strengthen the bloc’s efforts to rein in the market power of Big Tech firms.