Google to pay over $4B antitrust fine to EU after losing court case

BRUSSELS

Tech giant Google must pay €4.12 billion ($4.12 billion) in fine to the European Union after the bloc’s top court upheld on Wednesday the EU executive body’s antitrust decision.

“The General Court largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine,” the EU court said in a press statement.

The ruling ends the lawsuit initiated by Google against the 2018 decision of the European Commission that imposed €4.34 billion, the highest antitrust fine in the bloc’s history.

According to the EU, Google abused its dominant position in the mobile device and search engine market by demanding manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome on their devices with various “distribution agreements” and “revenue share agreements.”

The EU Court upheld the vast majority of the European Commission’s arguments, only proposing to reduce the penalty by 5% because of a difference in reasoning.

Last year, Google lost another case against the EU antitrust fine of €2.4 billion.

Maintaining fair competition in the bloc’s internal market is one of the few exclusive competencies of the EU. It allows the European Commission to decide on state aid rules and fine companies for breaching EU antitrust law.