Luxembourg: The European Court of Justice on 2 July 2026 dismissed Google and Alphabet's final appeal against a €4.1 billion antitrust fine, definitively upholding the European Commission's finding that the company abused the market dominance of its Android operating system. The ruling in Case C-738/22 P ends a legal fight over the Google Android fine that began when Brussels first imposed the record penalty in 2018.

Court seals a record penalty

Europe's top court confirmed the penalty of roughly €4.1 billion, as revised by the General Court in 2022, closing off any further appeal. The judgment is final and binding.

“The Court of Justice dismisses the appeal brought by Google and Alphabet against that judgment of the General Court, thereby confirming the penalty imposed on them, as revised by the General Court, for their anticompetitive practices relating to the Android operating system,” the Court said in a statement.

How the case began

In 2018, the European Commission concluded that Google had used Android's dominance to entrench its own services. Regulators found the company required smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser as a condition for licensing the Play Store, and paid manufacturers to bundle its search app exclusively.

The Commission argued that these practices denied rivals a fair chance to compete and deprived consumers of choice at a decisive moment in the shift to mobile computing. The Google Android fine was the largest antitrust penalty the EU had ever imposed at the time.

Google has always maintained that Android expanded consumer choice and lowered the cost of smartphones by offering the operating system to manufacturers for free. The company had argued before the General Court that the Commission failed to account for competition from Apple's iPhone, but the judges rejected that reasoning in 2022, and the Court of Justice has now put the question to rest.

What it means for rivals

Because the ruling exhausts Google's appeal options, it hands legal certainty to competitors that had complained about Android. Lawyers say the confirmed infringement can now underpin follow-on damages claims from businesses that argue they lost market share because of the conduct.

For the Commission, the decision is a decisive courtroom win after years of litigation and reinforces its authority to police the conduct of the largest technology platforms.

Background

The Android case is one of three major antitrust penalties Brussels levelled against Google over the past decade, alongside cases targeting its shopping-comparison service and advertising business. The rulings pre-date the EU's Digital Markets Act, which now imposes upfront obligations on dominant “gatekeeper” platforms rather than relying solely on lengthy after-the-fact investigations.

The confirmation of the Google Android fine underlines how those older cases continue to shape enforcement, even as regulators lean on newer tools to keep digital markets open to competition.