Google suffers major defeat as EU court upholds €4.1 billion antitrust fine

Europe’s highest court has rejected Google’s final appeal against a landmark EU antitrust penalty.

Originally the European Commission set the penalty at €4.34 billion eight years ago for using the Android operating system to suppress the competitors.

However, the lower court in 2022’s ruling lowered the penalty to €4.125 billion. Now in the Thursday ruling, the EU court upheld the previously suggested amount.

"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 Search's abuse ⁠of a dominant position in the context of the Android operating system," the ⁠Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union issued a statement.

The recent stemmed from a 2018 EU Commission ruling which discovered that Google abused the dominance of its operating system through various anti-competitive practices, including forced pre-installation, exclusivity payments and ensuring anti-fragmentation agreements.

In response to the landmark ruling, the Google spokesperson said that the recent ruling did not take into account “its investment to ensure Android remains open, free and interoperable."

"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 said.

In the last few decades, the tech giants suffered various legal setbacks related to antitrust violations, thereby racking up nearly €11 billion in fines.

It is highly possible that in near future Google would face more financial penalties for allegedly preferring its own products and own services in search results under the jurisdiction of Digital Markets Act.