The General Court of the European Union announced on Wednesday its decision in the Google case: the American company will have to pay a fine of 4.12 billion dollars, which is 200 million less than it was announced four years ago. In July 2018, the European Commission announced a record fine of €4.34 billion against Alphabet (Google), which it said had abused its dominant position in the use of the Android system.

The General Court of the European Union is a specialized court within the Court of Justice of the European Union, located in Luxembourg. The court confirms the decision of the commission, announced in 2018, and only reduces the amount of the fine from 4.34 to 4.12 billion dollars.

The court considers the fine justified in view of the seriousness of the violations, their duration and the turnover of the company.

In 2018, the European Commission stated that Google had introduced three restrictions:

• required manufacturers to pre-install their own search application (Google Search) and browser application (Chrome) as a condition of app store licensing (Play Store);

• made payments to certain major manufacturers and major mobile network operators based on the exclusive pre-installation of the Google search application on their devices and

• prevented manufacturers willing to pre-install Google applications from selling even one smart mobile device with alternative versions of the Android system that were not approved by Google (so-called “Android forks”).

In 2015, the European Commission officially opened an antitrust investigation into Google’s conduct regarding the Android mobile operating system.

In June 2017, the European Commission fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing its dominant position in online search to favor its price comparison service Google Shopping.

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