Google has lost a long-running fight against one of the largest antitrust penalties in European history. The Court of Justice of the European Union rejected the company's appeal and confirmed that the technology giant must still pay a record fine of 4.1 billion euros over alleged anticompetitive practices.
The case centers on Google's Android operating system, which powers most of the world's smartphones. In upholding the penalty, the EU's top court sided with regulators who had accused the company of abusing its dominant position in the market.
The dispute dates back several years. The European Commission first imposed the fine on Google in 2018, arguing that the company had unfairly leveraged the reach of Android to strengthen its other products.
At the heart of the Commission's case were deals with device makers. Regulators said Google had struck pre-installation agreements with smartphone manufacturers to give its search engine and its Chrome browser an unfair advantage over rivals on Android phones.
The size of the penalty has shifted over time. The Commission originally set the fine at 4.3 billion euros in 2018, before the EU's General Court trimmed it to 4.1 billion euros in 2022. With the latest ruling, that reduced figure has now been confirmed.
Google had pushed back on the core of the case. The company argued that the Android system actually created more choice for consumers, not less, contending that its practices benefited users rather than harming competition, an argument the court did not accept.
The decision lands amid broader pressure on the company in Europe. In 2025, the Commission imposed a separate fine of 2.95 billion euros on Google, finding that it had distorted competition in the advertising technology industry by favoring its own online display ad services to the detriment of rival providers, advertisers and online publishers.
Taken together, the rulings underscore the European Union's continued willingness to take on the world's biggest technology companies. By confirming the Android penalty, the court has cemented a landmark case that has come to symbolize Brussels' aggressive stance on competition in the digital economy.