Google’s final attempt to overturn a multibillion-euro fine for abusing its dominance in the mobile internet ecosystem should be dismissed, advocate general Juliane Kokott advised the Court of Justice of the European Union on Thursday. Her opinion, delivered on 19 June 2025, backed the general court’s earlier judgment and proposed that the fine of €4.124bn be upheld.
The dispute stems from the European Commission’s decision of 18 July 2018, when it imposed a record fine of nearly €4.343bn on the US tech company. The commission had found that since at least 1 January 2011, Google imposed contractual restrictions on device manufacturers and mobile network operators that distorted competition in the Android ecosystem.
Anticompetitive conduct and single infringement
The commission concluded that Google’s conduct amounted to a single and continuous infringement. The bundled licensing of the Play Store with Google Search and Chrome meant that manufacturers could only access essential apps if they also pre-installed Google’s search and browser tools. Moreover, companies were barred from selling devices running non-Google-approved versions of Android under an anti-fragmentation clause.
Google also operated a revenue-sharing scheme, which granted advertising revenue only to partners that refrained from pre-installing rival search engines. Although this element was later annulled by the general court, Kokott noted that the general court correctly upheld the overall strategy as a coherent infringement aimed at securing Google’s dominance during the critical expansion of the mobile internet.
Status quo bias
Kokott’s opinion addressed Google’s arguments against the bundling finding. She stated that the general court was right to rely on the influence of “status quo bias” caused by pre-installation, which disadvantaged competing apps. The advocate general also rejected Google’s call for a counterfactual analysis, asserting that it was unnecessary to show exactly how competition would have developed absent the contested behaviour.
In her view, the general court was justified in concluding that competition had been restricted, even without evidence that rivals as efficient as Google had been foreclosed. Given Google’s dominant position and the powerful network effects it enjoyed across Android markets, such a comparison would be unrealistic.
Fine recalculation
Following the partial annulment of the commission’s findings regarding revenue sharing, the general court had adjusted the original fine from €4.343bn to €4.124bn in its 14 September 2022 ruling. Kokott found no error in this recalculation, reaffirming that the remaining anticompetitive practices still justified a substantial penalty.
Her opinion is not binding, but the Court of Justice typically follows the advocate general’s advice in most cases. Should the court do so, it would mark the final legal defeat for Google in one of the EU’s most significant competition enforcement actions, further cementing Brussels’ aggressive stance on digital market regulation.
