The Court of Justice of the European Union recently dismissed Google and Alphabet’s appeal in the Google Android case and confirmed a €4.125 billion fine for anticompetitive practices related to the Android operating system. The July 2, 2026 ruling leaves in place the General Court’s reduced penalty, which partially annulled the European Commission’s 2018 decision. That decision had originally imposed a €4.342865 billion fine and held Alphabet jointly and severally liable for part of the amount.
The case centered on Google’s use of Android-related agreements to promote Google Search and Chrome on mobile devices. According to the Commission, Google required device manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome to obtain a Play Store license, restricted manufacturers from selling devices running non-approved Android versions and entered into revenue-sharing agreements that discouraged the pre-installation of rival general search services applications. The Commission viewed those restrictions as part of a single strategy to protect and strengthen Google’s dominant position in general search services and preserve its search advertising revenue.
In upholding the General Court’s judgment, the Court of Justice agreed with the lower court on several grounds. It held that the General Court properly assessed the anticompetitive effects of Google’s Android pre-installation conditions by considering the full economic context, including the revenue-sharing agreements, without requiring a systematic counterfactual analysis. The Court also accepted the General Court’s conclusion that the pre-installed apps benefited from status quo bias and that Google and Alphabet had not shown that user preferences or service quality alone accounted for consumers’ use of the apps. In addition, the Court held that the General Court did not err in confirming the Commission’s findings that the anti-fragmentation agreements strengthened Google’s dominant position, and that a counterfactual analysis was not necessary to show their anticompetitive effects in this case.
Finally, the Court agreed that the General Court could reject Google’s objective justifications for the anti-fragmentation agreements and were able classify the infringement as “single and continuous” despite the partial annulment of certain revenue-sharing agreements. It also upheld the revised fine after finding that the lower court’s reasoning and procedural safeguards were sufficient.