The day has come, today the final decision has been made by the General Court of the European Union on the occasion of the complaint of the European Commission to Google. The events date back to 2018 with the signing by the technology giant of allegedly illegal contracts with Android manufacturers that completely disregarded the rules set out in European antitrust law. A case that has remained on standby until today, and for which Google is obliged to finally pay the fine imposed in the trial amounting to 4,125 million euros.
What is the European Commission accusing you of?
It is not the first time that the EC has set its sights on Google -nor will it be the last-. The Commission assures that the company required manufacturers of Android devices to install your search engine and chrome browser. And all in exchange for Play Store credentials. Besides, he paid them not to install any other search engine other than Google Search and control the market themselves.
To this end, the Commission prepared a series of tests based on three types of contracts that Google would have signed almost a decade ago with smartphone manufacturers and telecommunications operators. These included Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADA) where smart device manufacturers had to pre-install Google’s search and browser apps to obtain Play Store licenses; Anti-Fragmentation Agreements (AFA) where manufacturers had to waive running alternative versions to the Android operating system; and Revenue Sharing Agreements (RSA), where Google would share its search revenues with the operators and manufacturers of said mobiles,
What Google stands for
The issue has been entrenched since 2018, although Google has already been sentenced to pay said millionaire fine. However, from San Francisco they argued that these statements were absolutely false, that the European Commission was lying without fully reliable evidence and They asked the General Court of the European Union for a second opinion. Google also defended that the installation of competitor apps could be done without problem and in the process, attacked Apple. Accusing him that it was imposing its services, in this case Safari to iPhone devices.
This time the winds have blown in favor of the European Commission. It should be remembered that lately there were not good times for their legal claims. Brussels has recently lost against two other technology where the fines that were initially imposed against Qualcomm and Intel were annulled.
