Court upholds billion-dollar fine against Google

According to Reuters the result preserves one of the largest penalties ever imposed on a technology company and maintains pressure from regulators on the sector.

Understand the origin of the fine

It all started in 2018, when the European Commission concluded that Google adopted agreements that forced smartphone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser and the Google Play store on Android devices.

In the agency’s assessment, these contracts also made it difficult to adopt competing versions of the operating system. For this reason, a fine of €4.34 billion (around R$27.7 billion) was imposed.

Appeal did not change the result

In 2022, a court reduced the penalty to €4.1 billion (approximately R$26.2 billion). Still, the company took the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union, in Luxembourg, but the appeal ended up being rejected.

The judges stated that “the appeal filed by Google and its parent company, Alphabet, against the General Court’s decision was rejected, thus confirming the penalty imposed for the abuse of Google Search’s dominant position in the context of the Android operating system”.

Central points of the decision

Among the practices analyzed by the authorities are:

• Required to pre-install Google Search, Chrome and Google Play.
• Restrictions on the use of competing Android systems.
• Understanding that these measures harmed competition.
• Confirmation of the penalty by the highest court in the European Union.

Commenting on the result, a Google spokesperson said that the judgment did not consider the investments made to keep Android open, interoperable and free.

The company representative stated that “in any case, we have adapted our agreements to comply with the initial 2018 decision and remain focused on continuous innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers”.

The case may still have new developments

This process is one of several clashes between Google and European regulators. According to the source text, the company has already accumulated around €11 billion (approximately R$70.3 billion) in fines for violating antitrust rules.

There are also investigations into a possible favoritism of the services themselves in search results and practices linked to the app store. Both cases involve the Digital Markets Law. With the decision in case C-738/22 P Google and Alphabet against the Commission, the fine remains valid and the confrontation between the company and the European Union continues.