WORLD
Google stares at 4.1-billion euro fine after losing antitrust case against EU
- IBJ Bureau
- Jul 03, 2026
Google has lost its long-running fight against a record EU antitrust fine for using its Android mobile operating system to block rivals.
Google’s loss in the court ruling is seen as likely to boost Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech.
The European Commission (EC), the bloc’s antitrust regulator, has fined Google billions of euros over several antitrust violations in the last 15 years.
But the cases have dragged through the courts as the search engine giant had filed appeals.
The Android fine was imposed in 2018, a year after the EC had fined Google 2.42 billion euros for using its shopping comparison service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller rivals.
Google had lost an appeal against that fine in 2021.
The EC had fined Google 4.34 billion euros for agreements which had forced phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser, and the Google Play app store on their Android devices and prevented them from using rival systems.
A lower tribunal subsequently trimmed the fine to 4.1 billion euros in 2022.
Google had then appealed to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s highest court.
The court had upheld the fine imposed by the EC.
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