The European justice pronounces this Wednesday on the validity of a record fine of 4,300 million euros imposed by Brussels on Google for having abused the dominant position of its Android operating system.
The EU court, based in Luxembourg, must publish at 09:30 a.m. (07:30 GMT) a judgment of first instance to confirm, annul or modify the sanction imposed on the American internet giant by the European Commission in 2018 .
Brussels in particular accuses Google of having forced the manufacturers of phones and tablets that use its operating system to pre-install its search engine and Chrome browser in order to eliminate competitors. The Android system is used in about 80% of mobile devices in the world.
And Apple?
The Mountain View (California) group considers the accusation unfounded and demands the annulment of this fine, the highest ever decided by the Brussels competition authority.
He believes the EU has wrongly ignored competitor Apple, which favors its own services, such as the Safari browser, on its iPhones. “We are going to explain that (…) the commission closed its eyes to the real competitive dynamics of this sector, the one that opposes Apple and Android,” explained the group’s lawyer during a hearing last year.
Google emphasized that downloading competitor apps was a click away and that customers were under no obligation to use their products on Android.
Three lawsuits against Google
However, this Wednesday’s decision should not close this dispute, which began in 2015 with the opening of a procedure by the European Commission after several complaints from competitors. In fact, both parties will have the possibility to appeal to the EU Court of Justice, 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 United States and Asia.
In 2017, the Commission imposed a €2.4 billion fine on the tech giant for anti-competitive practices in the price comparison market. This fine was confirmed in January by the EU court.
In 2019, the European executive had still claimed €1.5 billion from Google for competition infringements attributed to its AdSense advertising management.
Slap
A victory for Google on Wednesday would be a slap in the face for Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who piloted these files.
The European justice annulled in June a fine of almost one billion euros against the manufacturer of mobile telephone equipment Qualcomm, after having already annulled in January a sanction of 1,060 million euros against the manufacturer of electronic chips.
Frustrated by endless litigation against digital giants, the EU has devised new legislation to curb abuses of dominance by Silicon Valley giants.
The Digital Markets Law (DMA), which will come into force next year, will impose a series of upstream obligations and prohibitions on groups such as Google, Apple, Meta (Facebook) and Amazon. Your goal is to act before the abusive behavior has destroyed the competition.
Source: BFM TV
