Google will have to pay a record €4.125 billion ($4.67 billion) antitrust fine over anti-competitive practices after the European Union's top court ruled against an appeal by the tech giant on Thursday.
The European Commission initially imposed a €4.3 billion penalty in 2018, accusing Google of abusing its Android system's market dominance by requiring phone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome.
The EU's executive branch accused the search engine giant of restricting competition while imposing the bloc's highest antitrust fine ever.
The EU's General Court upheld the findings in 2022, but reduced the fine from €4.34 billion to €4.125 billion. Google then appealed to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice the EU's highest court, which has now sided with the bloc's antitrust enforcer.
"The appeal brought by Google and its parent company Alphabet against the judgment of the General Court is dismissed, thereby confirming the penalty imposed for Google Search's abuse of a dominant position in the context of the Android operating system," judges said.
