Google and Apple lose their court fights against the EU and owe billions in fines and taxes
The HinduGoogle lost its last bid to overturn a European Union antitrust penalty, after the bloc's top court ruled against it Tuesday in a case that came with a whopping fine and helped jumpstart an era of intensifying scrutiny for Big Tech companies. The European Union’s top court rejected Google's appeal against the 2.4 billion euro penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, for violating antitrust rules with its comparison shopping service. The Google ruling “reflects the growing confidence with which competition regulators worldwide are tackling the perceived excesses of the Big Tech companies,” said Gareth Mills, partner at law firm Charles Russell Speechlys. The court's willingness “to back the legal rationale and the level of fine will undoubtedly embolden the competition regulators further.” The shopping fine was one of three huge antitrust penalties for Google from the commission, which punished the Silicon Valley giant in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service over competitors.