Google and Apple’s legal woes are getting expensive.
On Tuesday, the tech giant lost the second and final appeal to overturn a 2017 antitrust ruling by the European Commission, forcing Google to pay $2.7 billion (2.42 billion euros). The ruling, upheld by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) said Google was guilty of anti-competitive practices via its Google Shopping service because it favored its own price-comparison tool over competing shopping tools in search results.
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Now that the Google ruling has been upheld, it “validates the Commission’s approach to such practices,” deemed “self-preferencing,” said EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager in her remarks about the ruling.
“This case was symbolic because it demonstrated that even the most powerful tech companies could be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Vestager continued. “It inspired regulators and policymakers worldwide to scrutinize the activities of digital giants more closely.”
The judgement comes a little over a month after Google lost a huge antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice. The case said Google was operating as a monopoly by paying Apple $20 billion a year to make Google the default search engine on Safari.
Apple lost in the EU courts too
Speaking of Apple, that company is also in trouble with the European Commission. On Tuesday, the same day it upheld its ruling against Google, the CJEU handed down a final decision forcing Apple to pay $14.3 billion (13 billion euros) in back taxes, after the Commission said Apple had skirted its tax bill due to loopholes in Irish tax laws. The judgment was the result of a decision upheld from 2016 that Apple has unsuccessfully tried to appeal. “It is a win for the Commission. It is also a win for the level playing field in the Single Market, and for tax justice,” said Vestager in the same remarks.
Recently, Apple was fined $1.9 billion by the EU for an antitrust violation against Spotify, and it faces another fine for breaching the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) for restricting third-party apps to the Apple App Store. If that weren’t enough, Apple is also in the middle of a antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice for favoring its own apps and services over third-party competitors.
