Europe’s top court has ruled that Google must pay a €4.1bn (£3.5bn) fine for using its Android mobile operating system to block rivals, dismissing the tech giant’s final appeal. The penalty, originally €4.3bn when handed down by the European Commission in 2018, was trimmed to €4.1bn in 2022, and is the largest the Commission has ever imposed on a single company.
The court upheld the Commission’s finding that Google had broken competition law in three ways: requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome as a condition for offering Google’s Play app store; making payments to large manufacturers and mobile network operators that agreed to exclusively pre-install Google Search; and threatening to refuse permission to pre-install its apps on devices powered by alternative “forked” versions of Android. The ruling acknowledged that Google’s version of Android does not prevent users from downloading other browsers or search engines.
“Europe's top court dismissed Google's final appeal, upholding a €4.1bn fine over Android antitrust violations.”
A Google spokesperson said the judgment “fails to recognise” the firm’s “significant investment to ensure Android remains open, interoperable and free”. They added: “In any event, we adapted our agreements to comply with the initial decision back in 2018 and we remain focused on continued innovation and openness for our users, partners and developers.”
When the original fine was announced, Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post that the decision “rejects the business model that supports Android, which has created more choice for everyone, not less.”
This is not the first time the European Commission has taken action against Google and its parent company Alphabet. In September 2024 it imposed a €2.4bn (£2bn) fine over the abuse of its market dominance in shopping-comparison services. A year later, in September 2025, it fined Google €2.95bn (£2.5bn) for favouring its own products in online advertising to the detriment of rivals.
Yet the €4.1bn penalty is not the largest ever imposed on Google. In October 2024, a Russian court ordered the company to pay a fine of two undecillion roubles — more than the world’s total GDP — for restricting Russian state media channels on YouTube.