EU court upholds antitrust ruling against Google, trims fine to €4.12B
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The European Court of Justice's General Court has largely maintained a decision by EU antitrust regulators against Alphabet's unit Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Google lost its appeal against an around â¬4.34B fine issued by the EU's executive commission in 2018 after it was found to have abused its market dominance. However, the court did cut down the fine by 5% due to a disagreement on one point of the regulator's decision.
The court agreed that Google did impose "unlawful restrictions" on Android mobile phone makers and network operators to strengthen the dominant position of its search engine. It reduced the fine by 5% to â¬4.125B, noting that some of its reasoning differs "in certain respects" from the commission.
The EU antitrust regulator has been pushing against tech giants such as Google (GOOG) (GOOGL), Intel (INTC) and Qualcomm (QCOM) with hefty fines.
Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) responded to the court's decision with disappointment, noting that "Android has created more choice for everyone, not less, and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world."
The case can still be appealed to the Europe's highest court, the EU Court of Justice.

GOOG shares were marginally up in pre-market hours