The European justice backs the highest fine against Google in history for antitrust: €4.1 billion

BrusselsEuropean justice has upheld the European Commission's decision to fine Google with the highest penalty in the history of the European Union for violating EU antitrust legislation. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Thursday rejected the appeal by the large US tech company against Brussels' punishment and upheld the imposition of a fine of up to 4.1 billion euros, slightly lower than what the Community executive had initially applied.

The European Commission began investigating Google for this case in 2015 and it was not until 2018 that it concluded that it forced smartphone manufacturers to pre-install its applications – such as Google Search or Google Chrome – to further strengthen its dominant position and prevent competitors from entering the sector. For this reason, the Community executive imposed the economic sanction and ruled that this clause was "abusive". According to Brussels, at that time, around 80% of mobiles and tablets in the EU ran on Android.

Google and its parent company, Alphabet, denied the majority of the decision taken by the European Commission and appealed the case. However, the court of first instance of European justice, the General Court of the EU, and the Advocate General of the CJEU had already sided with Brussels and rejected the US company's arguments. Google and Alphabet, however, did not give up and took the case to the highest court, the CJEU, which definitively upheld the sanction this Thursday.

Thus, the CJEU has ruled that there is a "bias" in obliging the pre-installation of certain applications from the same company on Android mobile devices, without "this behavior" being based on "user preferences or the quality of services" offered by these platforms. "These practices may limit the commercial opportunities of non-compatible Android versions and reinforce Google's dominant position," says the verdict of the highest court in Luxembourg.

Trump's pressure

The endorsement of the EU Court of Justice to the historic fine from the European Commission to Google and Alphabet comes at a time when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, is once again pressuring the European club to reduce digital regulation, which particularly affects large North American and Chinese technology companies. Among other threats, the US leader threatens to raise tariffs against European member states, as he has promised to do on repeated occasions.

For the moment, however, the European Commission assures that the deregulation of the digital market in the European Union is not on the negotiating table and points out that legislative power in the community bloc is the exclusive competence of European leaders. Furthermore, Brussels has not stopped applying sanctions and opening investigations against large US technology companies since Trump returned to the White House, and European justice has also not stopped endorsing fines against these multinationals.