A high court rejected Google’s appeal of a record European Union antitrust fine imposed for stifling competition and reducing consumer choice through its mobile Android operating system dominance.
It is yet another victory for EU regulators who are taking the global lead in limiting the power of large tech companies.
The General Court of the European Court of Justice mostly upheld a 2018 decision by the EU’s executive Commission to fine Google more than 4 billion euros ($3.99 billion).
“In order better to reflect the gravity and duration of the infringement,” it’s appropriate to give Google a fine of 4.125 billion euros, the court said. That’s slightly lower than the original 4.34 billion euro penalty, with the court saying its reasoning differed “in certain respects” from the commissions.
The company has previously claimed that the free and open-source Android operating system has resulted in low-cost phones and increased competition with its main rival, Apple. Android has surpassed Apple’s iOS as the most popular mobile operating system.
The fine is one of three antitrust fines totalling more than $8 billion imposed on Google by the European Commission between 2017 and 2019, putting the 27-nation bloc at the forefront of the global push to rein in tech behemoths.
