Luxembourg, Jan 28 (EFE).- Google and the European Commission clashed at a hearing at the European Court of Justice on Tuesday as the multinational sought to overturn a fine of more than 4 billion dollars, the largest in the bloc’s history, for abusing its dominant position with Android.
It will take months for the court’s second chamber – made up of the five judges – to deliver its final judgment, but non-binding conclusions by the court’s advocate general, Juliane Kokott, are due to be published on Jun. 12.
In 2018, the European Commission imposed a 4.3-billion-euro (4.5 billion dollar) fine on Google for restricting competition in the European Union market, which the technology giant appealed.
Two years later, a lower court sided with the European Commission but trimmed the fine to 4.1 billion euros (4.3 billion dollars).
During a seven-hour hearing on Tuesday, the technology company denied that its business model restricts competition in the search services market, as claimed by the EU, and insisted that, on the contrary, it benefits mobile device manufacturers.
Google was supported by several companies that would theoretically be harmed by its business model, such as Finnish HMD, German manufacturer Gigaset, Norwegian browser Opera, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association.
Google lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid accused the Commission of “multiple errors of law” and said it had “punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation.”
On the other hand, the European Commission’s lawyers argued that Google’s contracts contained abusive clauses that it used to consolidate a competitive advantage that was beginning to be threatened.
Brussels has the support of the European Consumers’ Association, the German newspaper and magazine publishers’ associations, the Fair Search organization, as well as the French search engine Qwant and the Czech search engine Seznam.
Abusive agreements
At the heart of the case are the distribution agreements between the US technology company and mobile device manufacturers, under which the latter were required to pre-install Google Search and Chrome to obtain a license to operate the Play Store app store.
These clauses are closely related to other anti-fragmentation agreements that Google also included in the contracts, which made Google Search and Play Store licenses contingent on manufacturers not selling phones equipped with unauthorized alternative versions of Android.
The third element of the case is the revenue sharing agreements, under which manufacturers agreed not to pre-install competing search engines on their devices in exchange for a share of Google’s advertising revenues.
The European Court has already upheld a 2.4 billion euro (2.5 billion dollars) fine against Google for illegally favoring its Google Shopping service in search results but overturned another 1.5 billion euro (1.5 billion dollars) fine for alleged abuses involving its AdSense advertising platform. EFE
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