Google has suffered a significant blow after an adviser to the European Union’s top court recommended upholding a €4.1 billion antitrust fine over the company’s alleged abuse of its dominant Android mobile operating system.
Advocate-General Juliane Kokott of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) advised the court to dismiss Google’s appeal and maintain the fine, originally imposed by the European Commission in 2018 and later reduced from €4.34 billion by a lower tribunal in 2022.
“The legal arguments put forward by Google are ineffective,” Kokott stated in her non-binding opinion. She rejected the tech giant’s claim that regulators should have assessed its conduct by comparing it to a hypothetical, equally efficient competitor.
“It is not realistic, in the present case, to compare the situation of Google with that of a hypothetical as-efficient competitor,” she said. “Google held a dominant position in several markets of the Android-ecosystem and thus benefited from network effects that enabled it to ensure that users used Google Search.”
The European Commission had accused Google of using its Android operating system—used on roughly 73% of the world’s smartphones, according to Statcounter—to shut out competitors. The Commission said that since 2011, Google had forced manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome alongside the Google Play Store, paid them to exclusively feature Google Search, and blocked access to rival versions of Android.
The CJEU judges, who follow advisory opinions in about four out of five cases, are expected to rule in the coming months.
Responding to the development, a Google spokesperson expressed disappointment: “Android has created more choice for everyone and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world. We are disappointed with the Opinion which, if it were followed by the Court, would discourage investment in open platforms and harm Android users, partners and app developers.”
Boluwatife Enome
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