EU’s Top Court Closes the Book on Google’s Android Case, Leaves €4.1 Billion Penalty Intact

Luxembourg — The Court of Justice of the EU has rejected a final appeal by Google and its parent company Alphabet against a competition penalty tied to the Android operating system bringing an eight-year-old case to an end” and leaving the companies on the hook for a fine of roughly €4.1 billion. 

The ruling dismisses the last avenue of legal challenge available to the companies over the underlying finding of wrongdoing.

The panel found no fault in the General Court’s reasoning and upheld the fine exactly as it had been recalculated by the General Court of the EU in 2022. 

According to the judges’ own account of the judgment, the case centered on whether Google had abused a dominant market position by using contractual terms tied to Android to steer traffic toward its own search engine and browser.

The judgment addressed five distinct legal questions raised on appeal, and the court ruled against Google and Alphabet on each of them.

On the question of whether pre-installation requirements actually harmed competition, the court held that the General Court could assess the full economic picture, including revenue-sharing arrangements with device makers, without having to construct a hypothetical market absent Google’s conduct.

The panel also endorsed a finding that consumers tend to stick with whatever software comes pre-loaded on a device, a tendency described in the case materials as a “status quo bias,” and found that Google had not shown this bias, rather than the quality of its own products, explained its market position.

The appellate court likewise rejected Google’s argument that regulators must prove a practice could exclude only rivals as efficient as Google itself before finding an abuse of dominance. 

Given what the court described as the particular features of digital markets, that test was not required to establish that Google’s practices could restrict competition and raise barriers for new entrants, the ruling states.

The court also upheld findings related anti-fragmentation agreements,” under which device manufacturers could only obtain licenses to pre-install Google Search and the Play Store if they agreed not to sell devices running unauthorized, modified versions of Android. 

Those agreements, the court found, could limit the market for alternative Android versions and reinforce Google’s dominant position, and no hypothetical counterfactual analysis was needed to reach that conclusion in this case.

the court affirmed the General Court’s authority to independently set the size of the fine — a power described in the ruling as “unlimited jurisdiction” — and found that the lower court had given adequate reasoning and respected Google’s procedural rights, including its right of defense, in doing so.

The dispute traces back to a July 2018 decision by the EC, which concluded that Google had violated Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the European Economic Area Agreement — both of which prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position. 

The Commission’s original decision identified three restrictions: requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome to license the Play Store; banning the sale of devices running unapproved Android versions; and tying ad-revenue payments to the exclusive pre-installation of Google Search on certain devices.

It  treated all three practices as parts of a single, continuous infringement and fined Google €4.342 billion, with Alphabet held jointly liable for €1.922 billion of that amount.

Google appealed to the General Court of the EU, which ruled on September 14, 2022. 

It upheld the Commission’s findings but annulled the portion on the revenue-sharing agreements, finding the Commission had not adequately proven their anticompetitive effect. It then reduced the fine to €4.125 billion, with Alphabet’s share of joint liability set at roughly €1.521 billion.

Google and Alphabet then brought the case now decided — a further appeal limited to points of law — before the Court of Justice on Nov 30, 22. 

Google and Alphabet were supported in the appeal by several industry parties, including the CCIA, while the European Commission was backed by consumer group BEUC and search-industry group FairSearch, among others. 

Advocate General Juliane Kokott delivered a non-binding opinion in the case on June 19, 2025, ahead of Thursday’s final judgment.

Under EU court procedure, appeals to the Court of Justice are limited to points of law, not factual findings. Finding no legal error in how the General Court applied competition law, the Court left the September 2022 judgment — including the reduced €4.125 billion fine — as the final ruling.

The Court of Justice’s press office describes the decision as “unofficial” for media use and non-binding, stressing that only the full judgment published on the day of delivery is authoritative.

Wider regulatory context

The Android case was brought under traditional EU competition law — Article 102 TFEU — not the Digital Markets Act, which applies to designated “gatekeeper” platforms from 2023. 

The Commission opened a formal investigation (case DMA.100231) into whether Google Search’s handling of third-party website reputation breaches the Digital Markets Act’s rules on self-preferencing and fair access. 

The case remains open and is unrelated to Thursday’s Android ruling.

The Commission has described the Digital Markets Act, which it alone enforces, as intended to complement rather than replace existing EU competition rules such as those applied in the Android case.

The Court of Justice’s dismissal of the appeal is final. Under EU procedure, there is no further avenue of appeal against its rulings.

 The Commission’s separate Digital Markets Act investigation into Google Search’s site-reputation policy, opened in November 2025, remains pending and was not affected by Thursday’s judgment.