Apple and Google Court Losses Mark ‘Big Win’ for Regulators

A European court has ruled against both Apple and Google in separate cases.

The European Union Court of Justice has upheld a 2016 decision by the European Commission that Ireland gave Apple unfair aid in a $14 billion tax case, while also siding with the EC in its antitrust case against Google Shopping, the commission said Tuesday (Sept. 10).

Both judgments are final, the EC added.

“Today is a big win for European citizens and for tax justice,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s lead antitrust enforcer, said in a speech outlining the rulings.

The EC had found in 2016 that Apple had underpaid taxes totaling 13.1 billion euros to Ireland from 2003 to 2014. A lower court had vacated the EC’s decision in 2020.

In the Google case, the court sided with the EC’s finding that Google’s search results favored its own shopping service over the services of its competitors. The commission had fined Google 2.42 billion euros ($2.6 billion).

“This important judgment validates the Commission’s approach to such practices. We call them ‘self-preferencing,’” Vestager said.

“Dominant companies, as any other companies, are of course free to innovate in all fields, but in doing so, they should compete on the merits. However, they cannot lean on the competitive advantage that they hold because of their market power.”

A spokesperson for Google told PYMNTS the company was disappointed by the ruling.

“This judgment relates to a very specific set of facts. We made changes back in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision. Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”

PYMNTS has contacted Apple for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

The ruling comes as both tech giants deal with antitrust matters around the world. For example, this week saw the start of a trial in which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a number of states allege Google pushes its competition out of digital ad markets and harms publishers.

If successful, the plaintiffs could ask the judge to order a breakup of Google. The company has denied the allegations, saying that it doesn’t have to share its technology with competitors and that its products are interoperable with those of its rivals.