Google suffered one of its biggest setbacks on Wednesday when a top European court fined it 4.125 billion euros ($4.13 billion) for using its Android mobile operating system to thwart rivals, offering a precedent for other regulators to ratchet up pressure.
“The General Court largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine,” the court said.
The unit of U.S. tech giant Alphabet (GOOGL.O) had challenged an earlier ruling, but the decision was broadly upheld by the Europe’s second-highest court in Wednesday’s ruling and the fine was reduced only modestly from 4.34 billion euros.
This is the second court defeat for Google which lost its challenge to a 2.42 billion euro ($2.42 billion) fine last year, the first of a trio of cases.
The ruling is a boost for EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager following setbacks in cases involving other tech giants such as Intel (INTC.O) and Qualcomm (QCOM.O) this year.
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