Luxembourg, 19 June 2025 — Advocate General Juliane Kokott has recommended that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) uphold a €4.124 billion fine against Google, rejecting the tech giant’s appeal in the high-profile Android antitrust case.
The case concerns a 2018 European Commission decision that found Google had abused its dominant position in the mobile ecosystem through a series of contractual restrictions imposed on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators. Originally fined €4.343 billion, Google’s penalty was later reduced slightly by the General Court in 2022 after it annulled part of the decision related to revenue-sharing agreements.
Despite that partial annulment, the General Court upheld the core findings that Google had used three main restrictions to unfairly cement its dominance in general search services:
- Bundling — requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome as a condition for licensing the Play Store;
- Anti-fragmentation — prohibiting manufacturers from selling devices running unauthorised versions of Android;
- Revenue-sharing — tying advertising revenue payments to exclusivity for Google Search on devices.
In her opinion, Advocate General Kokott rejected Google’s legal arguments, asserting that the General Court correctly upheld the Commission’s findings of a single and continuous infringement. She also agreed that a full “counterfactual” analysis of what the market would look like absent Google’s conduct was not necessary.
Kokott noted that Google’s market dominance and data-driven advantages could not be realistically matched by a hypothetical “as-efficient” competitor, reinforcing the conclusion that the pre-installation of Google apps created an unfair competitive edge due to the “status quo bias” of users.
Although opinions by Advocates General are not binding, they are often influential in the final rulings of the Court of Justice. If followed, this opinion would bring to a close one of the EU’s most significant competition cases to date—solidifying the Commission’s authority to regulate tech giants’ conduct in digital markets.
The final ruling from the Court of Justice is expected in the coming months.
Source: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2025-06/cp250072en.pdf
