Google Tells Court EU Antitrust Fine Punishes Innovation

Google reportedly told the European Union’s Court of Justice Tuesday (Jan. 28) that the European Commission investigation that resulted in a 4.3 billion euro (about $4.5 billion) fine “punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation.”

Alfonso Lamadrid, a lawyer for Google, said this at an appeals hearing in which the company is seeking to overturn the highest-ever antitrust fine imposed by the EU, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Jan. 28).

In this case that dates back to 2018, the EU alleged that Google illegally bolstered the dominance of its search engine by telling handset makers that they must pre-install the Google Search app and the Chrome browser in order to access its Play Store; making payments to some manufacturers and operators if they pre-installed the Google Search app; and preventing manufacturers who wanted to pre-install apps from running versions of Android that were not approved by Google, according to the report.

Defending their decision before the court on Tuesday, European Union lawyers said Google used a “carrot and stick strategy” when dealing with phone manufacturers, per the report.

Fernando Castillo de la Torre, a lawyer for the EU regulator, said Google’s Android “has almost total control over the ecosystem,” according to the report.

An earlier appeal of the record antitrust fine imposed by the EU resulted in a 5% reduction in the fine in September 2022, PYMNTS reported at the time.

That decision was based on a disagreement on one point.

“The General Court largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine,” the court said in September 2022.

“In order to better reflect the gravity and duration of the infringement, the General Court considers it appropriate however to impose a fine of €4.125 billion on Google, its reasoning differing in certain respects from that of the Commission,” judges said.

In its Tuesday report, Bloomberg said a final ruling is expected within months.

It added that President Donald Trump has called the penalties imposed by the EU on Big Tech companies “a form of taxation.”