Google suffers setback as EU legal opinion backs record fine

LUXEMBOURG: Google suffered a legal blow at the European Court of Justice today, when the body's adviser recommended upholding a record fine imposed on the company for anti-competitive practices.
The US tech giant has been trying to overturn on appeal a €4.3-billion (RM21 billion) fine imposed by the European Commission in 2018, which was later reduced to €4.1 billion.
But in its opinion, Juliane Kokott, advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), said "the legal arguments put forward by Google are ineffective", the court later said in a statement.
Although not binding, such advice carries weight and is often followed by EU judges in their rulings.
The commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, had accused Google of abusing the popularity of its Android operating system to restrict competition.
It alleged Google pressured phone makers using Android to pre-install its search engine and Google Chrome browser – essentially shutting out rivals.
The findings were upheld in 2022 by the European Union's second-highest court, which slightly reduced the fine.
The levy remains the EU's biggest ever.
Arguing that the commission's case was unfounded and that the sanction penalised innovation, Google appealed to the EU's top court.
The company had also pushed the case that the EU was unfairly blind to Apple, which gives preference to its own services, such as Safari on iPhones.
Today's advice will guide the EUCJ in its decision. The court has the final say on the matter.
"Google held a dominant position in several markets of the Android-ecosystem and thus benefited from network effects that enabled it to ensure that users used Google Search," the court said, detailing Kokott's opinion.
"As a result, Google obtained access to data that enabled it in turn to improve its service. No hypothetical as-efficient competitor could have found itself in such a situation," the statement read.
As part of a major push to target big tech abuses, the EU slapped Google with fines worth a total of €8.2 billion between 2017 and 2019 over antitrust violations.
This set off a series of long-running legal battles.
Brussels has since armed itself with a more powerful legal weapon known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to rein in tech giants.
Rather than regulators discovering egregious antitrust violations after probes lasting many years, the DMA gives businesses a list of what they can and cannot do online.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Sun

2 hours ago

• The Sun

EU bars China firms from major medical equipment deals

BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) yesterday banned Chinese firms from government medical device purchases worth more than €5 million (RM25 million) in retaliation for limits Beijing places on access to its own market. The latest salvo in trade tensions between the 27-nation bloc and China covers a wide range of healthcare supplies, from surgical masks to X-ray machines, that represent a market worth €150 billion in the EU. 'Our aim with these measures is to level the playing field for EU businesses,' the bloc's trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said. 'We remain committed to dialogue with China to resolve these issues.' In response, China accused the EU of 'double standards'. 'The EU has always boasted that it is the most open market in the world, but in reality, it has gradually moved towards protectionism', foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular press briefing. 'Under the guise of fair competition (the EU) actually carries out unfair competition, which is a typical case of double standards.' The European Commission said in a statement the move was in 'response to China's longstanding exclusion of EU-made medical devices from Chinese government contracts.' Brussels said just under 90% of public procurement contracts for medical devices in China 'were subject to exclusionary and discriminatory measures' against EU firms. In addition to barring Chinese firms from major state purchases, 'inputs from China for successful bids' would also be limited to 50%, it said. Over the last three years, Brussels and Beijing have come into conflict in a number of economic sectors, including electric cars, the rail industry, solar panels and wind turbines. The decision on medical devices comes at a time of heightened trade tensions with President Donald Trump, which has imposed customs surcharges on imports from all over the world, including Europe. The EU has decided to take a tougher stance on trade in recent years, adopting a vast arsenal of legislation to better defend its businesses against unfair competition. In April 2024, the commission opened an investigation into Chinese public contracts for medical devices, the first under a new mechanism introduced by the EU in 2022 to obtain better access to overseas state purchases. China, on the other hand, accuses Europe of protectionism. After a year of negotiations, the commission, which manages trade policy on behalf of the 27 member states, said it had failed to make any progress with China. 'The measure seeks to incentivise China to cease its discrimination against EU firms and EU-made medical devices and treat EU companies with the same openness as the EU does with Chinese firms and products,' Brussels said. – AFP

Malay Mail

2 hours ago

• Malay Mail

China's rare-earth magnet exports plunge 70pc in May amid trade tensions, lowest level since 2015

BEIJING, June 20 — Chinese exports of rare-earth magnets continued their downward slide in May, official data showed on Friday, reflecting restrictions imposed by Beijing during its trade war with the United States. China is the world's leading producer of rare earths, used to make magnets essential to the automotive, electronics and defence industries. Since April, Beijing has required traders to obtain licences before they export the strategic materials, a move seen as retaliation for US curbs on the import of Chinese goods. Many manufacturers, particularly in the automotive sector, have bewailed what they view as sporadic licence issuances. And Chinese customs data revealed Friday that the country's rare-earth magnet exports plummeted by 70 per cent year-on-year in May, following an initial slowdown observed in April. Exports fell below the US$60 million mark, hitting their lowest level since 2015 excluding the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Bloomberg News. After talks between China and the US in London this month, Beijing said it had issued a 'certain number' of export licences for rare earths. US President Donald Trump said last week on his Truth Social platform that 'any necessary rare earths... will be supplied, up front, by China'. Beijing also said it would launch a 'green channel' to facilitate rare earth exports to the European Union. But its exports of rare-earth magnets to the EU in May plunged by 81 per cent year-on-year, according to the customs figures. And exports of small parcels to the US dropped by half compared to the previous month. Last month, Washington ended a tariff exemption previously enjoyed by low-value parcels shipped from China and Hong Kong. The measure dealt a severe blow to platforms shipping low-cost items from China, such as Shein and Temu. The decline was offset by a rise in China's total small parcel exports to the rest of the world, which were up 40 per cent year-on-year, with particularly notable increases to Singapore, Russia, Europe and Australia. Besides the US, several countries have been trying to limit the rise of platforms sending cheap products made in China. This month, France adopted a bill that aims to curb fast fashion by banning advertising and imposing an additional tax on small parcels. — AFP

The Star

3 hours ago

• The Star

Turkish competition authority launches probe into Google's PMAX

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkey's antitrust authority will launch a probe into Google's Performance Max (PMAX) to determine if the AI-powered ad campaign product violates competition laws, it said on Friday. In a statement, the competition board said the probe will examine whether Google has engaged in unfair practices against advertisers and if it has hindered competition through data consolidation with PMAX. Google's Performance Max uses AI and automatically finds the best placements for a brand's ads across Google services including email, search and YouTube. (Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Joe Bavier)