Google Loses, Android Fine of 4.7 billion US dollars Remains in Place

Google has lost a long legal battle against an EU antitrust fine related to Android. (Wikimedia Commons)

Google lost a long legal battle against an EU antitrust fine related to Android. The EU's highest court rejected Google and its parent company Alphabet's appeal.

Launching an Anadolu Agency report, quoted Friday, July 3, the fine is worth around 4.1 billion euros or 4.7 billion US dollars. At a rate of Rp17,700 per US dollar, the value is equivalent to around Rp83.2 trillion.

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Thursday that an appeal against a previous ruling by the General Court was dismissed. The ruling leaves Google's fine in place.

Google is considered to have abused Google Search's dominant position in the Android ecosystem. A dominant position means a very strong position in the market so that a company can influence competition.

Anadolu Agency reported that the case began in 2018. At that time, the European Commission stated that Google abused its dominant position through pre-installation agreements and licensing terms to promote Google Search and the Chrome browser on Android-based mobile devices.

Pre-installed means that the application is already installed since the device was purchased or first used. In this case, Google Search and Chrome have an initial position on Android devices through an agreement with the device manufacturer.

The European Commission had originally imposed a total fine of 4.34 billion euros on Google. Alphabet was held jointly and severally liable for part of the fine.

At the first level, the General Court confirmed Google's classification as a single and ongoing violation. However, the court overturned part of the European Commission's decision regarding a number of revenue-sharing agreements with device manufacturers and mobile network operators.

After the partial cancellation, the General Court reduced the fine to 4.125 billion euros. Alphabet is also jointly and severally liable for 1.52 billion euros.

In its latest ruling, the European Court of Justice said the General Court was not legally wrong in assessing the anticompetitive impact of Google's Android agreement.

The Court considered that the General Court may consider a broader economic context, including the revenue-sharing agreement. The Court is also not obliged to always carry out a counterfactual analysis to prove the abuse of a dominant position.

Contrafactual analysis is a comparison with another state of affairs should the practice in question not occur.

The European Court of Justice also confirmed the finding that pre-installed apps benefit from the status quo bias. This term refers to the tendency of users to stick with the options that are already available.

The court rejected Google and Alphabet's arguments that the observed market behavior was only due to user preferences or the quality of their services.

The Court also stated that the General Court was correct when it upheld the European Commission's assessment of the Android pre-installation requirements and the anti-fragmentation agreement. In the context of Android, anti-fragmentation relates to provisions that manufacturers do not make Android versions that deviate from Google's standards.

The practice is considered to limit competition and strengthen barriers to entry into the market.

In addition, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the General Court's decision to maintain the classification of the infringement as a single and continuous infringement, despite the partial annulment related to a number of revenue-sharing agreements.