The European Court of Justice, the EU's top court, has confirmed an antitrust fine for Google worth €4.125 billion ($4.7 billion) for abusing the dominant position of its Android operating system.
The judges at the court in Luxembourg dismissed an appeal by the US tech giant on Thursday, bringing a lengthy legal saga to an end.
The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s competition authority, imposed the record fine on Google back in 2018, after which the case went through all available legal instances.
The commission argued Google had illegally reinforced its dominance by offering Google Search to mobile phone manufacturers only as a bundle with other Google apps, paying them for pre-installing Google Search as the only search app, and obstructing the development of competing apps.
Following a first complaint by Google and its parent company Alphabet, the EU's General Court, the lower chamber, reduced the penalty payment of originally €4.34 billion to €4.125 billion in 2022.
Google appealed the 2022 ruling, prompting the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to deal with the case.
The ECJ confirmed the first instance ruling, saying "the General Court was entitled to conclude that those practices were liable to restrict competition and strengthen barriers to entry without applying that test."
A spokesman for Google said: "This judgment fails to recognize our significant investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free.
"In any event, we adapted our agreements to comply with the initial decision back in 2018 and we remain focused on continued innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers," the spokesman said.
The case is one of several antitrust battles between the European Commission and Google over its market power.
In 2021, Google also lost a trial against a €2.4 billion competition fine for abusing its market dominance by promoting its own shopping services and appealed the ruling.
