LUXEMBOURG – A €4.34 billion (RM21 billion) European Union antitrust fine is based on flawed calculations, said Alphabet’s Google yesterday, urging the bloc’s second-highest court to scrap or reduce what it said is not an appropriate penalty.
The company was fined for using its Android mobile operating system to thwart rivals and cement its dominance in general internet search from 2011, in the largest penalty meted out to any firm found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
“The fine that was imposed, a staggering €4.34 billion, is not appropriate,” Google’s lawyer Genevra Forwood told a five-judge panel of the General Court on the fourth day of a week-long hearing, which is taking place three years after the European Commission sanctioned the company.
“The problem is not the headline-grabbing fine per se. The problem is how the commission reached that figure.”
She said there was no anti-competitive intent in Google’s actions, nor could it have known that its conduct was an abuse based on EU case law, and there was no precedent for it.
“So, it was wrong for the commission to impose any fine at all, let alone turn up the dials to reach its biggest fine ever.”
She also took issue with the EU competition enforcer, adding that there is an 11% gravity factor to Google’s fine compared with 5% for Intel in 2009.
“Even if this court considers that a fine is appropriate, it would only be proper to turn the dials right down.”
However, the commission’s lawyer Anthony Dawes said Google “simply could not be unaware of the anti-competitive behaviour of its practices”.
“Infringements committed negligently are no less serious than those committed intentionally,” he said, adding that the fine is just 4.5% of Google’s revenue in 2017 versus a 10% cap allowed under EU rules.
A verdict is likely to come next year. – Reuters, October 1, 2021
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