Google ‘disappointed’ after EU court refuses to overturn record fine

Published on: 09/14/2022 – 11:54 The American giant Google said it was “disappointed” by the decision of the European justice which validated on Wednesday a record fine from Brussels against it for abuse of a dominant position in its system Android operating system. The American Internet giant Google failed on Wednesday September 14 to have a record fine of 4.3 billion euros imposed in 2018 by Brussels canceled for having abused the dominant position of its Android operating system, according to a judgment. of the General Court of the EU. “The action brought by Google is essentially dismissed”, considered the court established in Luxembourg. However, it considers it “appropriate” to reduce the amount of the sanction to 4.1 billion euros in order to better reflect the gravity and the duration of the infringement. “We are disappointed that the court (of the EU ) has not overturned the decision in its entirety. Android has created more choice for everyone (…) and supports thousands of companies in Europe and around the world”, reacted Google in a press release. This is a judgment delivered at first instance and subject to appeal within two months. its search engine and its Chrome browser to eliminate competitors. The Android system is used on approximately 80% of mobile devices worldwide.”The court largely upholds the Commission’s decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on mobile device manufacturers and mobile network operators to to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine”, indicates the court in a press release. The group of Mountain View (California) considers the accusation unfounded. He had seized European justice to demand the cancellation of the fine, the highest ever decided by the competition authority in Brussels (even after the reduction proposed by the court). The American giant believes that the EU has wrongly ignored the competitor Apple, which favors its own services on its iPhones, such as the Safari browser. “The commission has turned a blind eye to the real competitive dynamics of this sector, the one between Apple and Android”, explained the group’s lawyer during a hearing last year. Google pointed out that the downloading of applications competitors was accessible with a simple click and that customers were in no way forced to use its products on Android. a procedure by the European Commission, after several complaints from competitors. Google has the possibility of appealing to the Court of Justice of the EU, the highest European court. The case is one of the three major disputes opened by Brussels against Google, whose practices are also disputed in the States. United States and Asia. In 2017, the Commission imposed a fine of 2.4 billion euros on the technology giant for anti-competitive practices in the price comparison market. This fine was confirmed in January by the EU court. Google then announced that it was appealing. In 2019, the European executive had again claimed 1.5 billion euros from Google for competition infringements attributed to its AdSense advertising agency. European justice, on the other hand, had canceled in June a fine of nearly a billion euros against the mobile phone equipment manufacturer Qualcomm, after having already canceled in January a sanction of 1.06 billion euros against the manufacturer of electronic chips Intel. Frustrated by the endless procedures against digital giants, the EU has designed new legislation to curb abuse of dominant position by Silicon Valley giants. The Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is due to come into force next year , will impose a series of obligations and prohibitions on groups such as Google, Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Amazon. It aims to act before abusive behavior has destroyed competition. With AFP