The U.S. innovates and the EU regulates, or so sure transatlantic punters like to harp. We’re not going to get embroiled in that noise right here, however two issues are clear: The bloc’s Single Market has its personal specific algorithm, and various U.S. tech giants have run afoul of European Union competitors laws over the previous a number of many years. Make of that what you’ll.
Earlier this month, as she reveled in nailing a few main antitrust case appeals towards Apple and Google, the EU’s outgoing competitors chief, Margrethe Vestager, jokingly referred to Large Tech as a few of her greatest clients. Ouch.
We’ve compiled a listing of 10 of the largest EU antitrust actions focusing on tech to offer a snapshot of essentially the most high-profile — if not at all times consequential — competitors skirmishes between Brussels and trade heavy hitters over the previous a number of many years of digital growth. The listing is ordered primarily based on the scale of the superb or legal responsibility concerned.
Whereas it’s truthful to say the EU’s antitrust tech enforcement outcomes have diverse, one lasting legacy is that a few of these main instances served as inspiration for the bloc’s Digital Markets Act: A flagship market contestability reform that would see main tech gamers hit tougher and quicker within the coming years. It’s lastly Large Tech’s time to buckle up.
Eire’s tax breaks for Apple
Nobody enjoys paying their taxes, even much less a requirement for unpaid again taxes. However by September 2018, Apple had simply completed handing the EU an eye-watering €13.1 billion (then value $15.3 billion) after the bloc efficiently sued considered one of its member states, Eire, over unlawful tax breaks granted to Apple between 1991 and 2014.
The State Help case, which falls broadly underneath the bloc’s competitors guidelines, went forwards and backwards via EU attraction courts. However in September 2024, the Court docket of Justice affirmed the unique August 2016 Fee discovering of illegal State Help.
With the highest court docket weighing in with a last ruling (not a referral again to a decrease court docket), Apple’s authorized choices to proceed difficult the choice are all however exhausted, and the billions in underpaid taxes sitting in an EU escrow account look set to lastly pour into Eire’s coffers.
Google’s Android restrictions on OEMs
Micromanaging the software program that cell gadget makers may bundle with its working system, Android — to get its personal wares in entrance of Android customers whatever the {hardware} they picked — obtained Google into expensive sizzling water within the EU in recent times. Round $5 billion value of antitrust warmth, in truth. The 2018 Fee resolution sanctioning it for abusing a dominant place was, and nonetheless is, a record-breaking penalty for this class of competitors abuse.
The unique EU €4.34 billion superb on Google was revised down barely, to €4.125 billion, in a September 2022 attraction resolution by the Common Court docket. Nevertheless, the judges largely upheld the unique Fee resolution, rejecting Google’s bid to overturn the enforcement.
Again in June 2017, Google was hit with one other (on the time) record-breaking €2.42 billion penalty for abusing a dominant place — this one in relation to the way it operated its product comparability service, Google Purchasing (beforehand branded Google Product Search and, earlier than that, the pun-tastic Froogle).
The bloc discovered that Google had not solely unfairly favored its personal (eponymous) purchasing comparability service in natural search outcomes, a market the tech large has nearly totally sewn up in Europe, however had additionally actively demoted rival comparability providers. The multi-billion-euro superb ensued — value round $2.73 billion on the time it was introduced — and was subsequently affirmed in a September 2024 resolution by the EU’s prime court docket.
Apple’s anti-steering on iOS music streaming
The EU branched into a contest idea of hurt that accused Apple of shopper exploitation, quite than exclusionary conduct, on this long-running enforcement towards Apple’s conduct within the music streaming market on iOS.
The bloc’s competitors division modified tack a number of instances, because it investigated iOS developer complaints towards the App Retailer operator. However in March 2024 it ended up hitting Apple with a €1.84 billion superb (round $2 billion) for banning builders from telling iPhone customers about cheaper offers obtainable outdoors Apple’s retailer. The overwhelming majority of the monetary sanction — a full €1.8 billion — was utilized on prime of the EU’s normal damages calculation, which the bloc stated it hoped would act as a deterrent. (With out it, the superb would have been a mere €40 million — or a “parking ticket” stage penalty for Large Tech.)
Google’s AdSense restrictions
One more billion+ antitrust penalty hit Google for abuse of dominance in March 2019, when the bloc sanctioned the corporate over its search advert brokering enterprise. The Fee discovered it had used restrictive clauses in contracts with clients between 2006 and 2016 in a bid to squeeze out rival advert brokers. A penalty of €1.49 billion (or round $1.7 billion) was duly imposed.
Nevertheless, in September 2024, regardless of upholding nearly all of the Fee’s findings, the EU’s Common Court docket annulled the AdSense resolution in its entirety over errors in how the Fee assessed the period of Google’s contracts. It stays to be seen whether or not the EU will attraction.
The Fee nonetheless has one other (open) case probing Google’s adtech stack extra broadly, which may additionally make the AdSense case appear to be small beer. Margrethe Vestager warned final yr that if the suspected violations are confirmed, a structural separation (i.e., breaking apart Google) would be the solely viable treatment.
PC monitor and TV elements price-fixing cartel
In 2012, the EU handed down a complete of €1.47 billion in fines in a cartels case associated to the sale of elements used within the manufacture of pc displays and TVs. A raft of electronics giants had been caught up within the enforcement over price-fixing of cathode ray tubes (CRT) between 1996 and 2006. The elements had been utilized in pc displays and TVs within the pre-flatscreen period, and the Fee discovered that {hardware} makers had colluded to repair costs. Fines had been handed all the way down to seven electronics giants that had been concerned in both one or two CRT cartels, together with LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, and Toshiba.
Chipmaker Intel’s exclusionary practices
Going additional again in time, we arrive in Could 2009, at what was then a file €1.06 billion antitrust penalty for chipmaker Intel after the EU discovered that the U.S. large had abused a dominant place to exclude rival AMD. Intel had been paying pc producers and retailers to postpone, cancel, or in any other case keep away from utilizing or promoting AMD’s merchandise, and the EU discovered these exclusionary practices breached competitors guidelines.
The chipmaker appealed the EU’s enforcement with some success over the next decade of authorized arguments. In 2017, the Court docket of Justice put aside an earlier ruling by a decrease court docket and referred the case again to the Common Court docket, which went on to annul a part of the Fee’s resolution, whereas permitting that a few of Intel’s practices had been illegal.
The Court docket quashed the unique superb in its entirety, owing to uncertainty over the penalty calculation, however final yr the EU reimposed a superb of €376.36 million on Intel — for the “bare restrictions” that the Court docket had upheld. Appeals nonetheless rumble on, so the place this enforcement ends up stays to be seen.
Qualcomm’s cope with Apple for cell chips
In early 2018, it was cell chipmaker Qualcomm’s flip to be hit with a beefy EU antitrust penalty: €997 million (or round $1.23 billion on the time). The sanction was for abuse of a dominant place between 2011 and 2016. The enforcement centered on Qualcomm’s relationship with Apple, and the EU determined it had shut rival chipmakers out of the marketplace for supplying LTE baseband chipsets by paying Apple to completely use its chips for iPhones and iPads.
Nevertheless, Qualcomm appealed the choice, and in June 2022 the EU Common Court docket dominated in its favor, rejecting the Fee’s evaluation and in addition discovering some procedural faults with its case. The EU later confirmed it will not attraction the judgment, so that is one sizable antitrust penalty that didn’t make it past the headlines.
The bloc has had higher luck in a separate (longer-running) antitrust process towards the chipmaker: In September 2024, the Common Court docket largely upheld a Fee penalty on Qualcomm of just below $270 million in a case associated to predatory pricing.
Microsoft’s anti-competitive licensing practices
We’ve got to wind again the clock all the best way to March 2004 to reach on the EU giving Microsoft a spanking for abusing a dominant place with its Home windows working system. The then-record €497 million penalty (round $794 million) could be value nearer to €762 million (or ~$1.3 billion) right now, factoring in Eurozone inflation (per this software).
The unique grievance sparking the investigation into Microsoft’s licensing and royalties practices dated all the best way again to 1993. The EU’s enforcement on Microsoft was upheld on attraction. In addition to handing down a superb, the bloc ordered numerous cures, together with interoperability necessities, and a second, bigger penalty of €899 million was handed down on Microsoft in February 2008 for noncompliance. A 2012 resolution by the EU’s Common Court docket upheld the noncompliance penalty however lowered the extent of the noncompliance superb barely to €860 million.
Luxembourg’s tax cope with Amazon
In an October 2017 State Help case, the EU argued that Luxembourg, the member state the place e-commerce large Amazon has its regional base, had granted the corporate “undue tax advantages” between Could 2006 and June 2014. The Fee discovered that Amazon’s company construction within the nation had allowed it to pay 4 instances much less tax than different firms primarily based there — a tax break the EU calculated was value round €250 million. (The EU doesn’t subject fines for State Help instances however requires any unlawfully uncollected taxes to be recouped.)
However whereas the Fee took subject with Luxembourg’s methodology of calculating Amazon’s taxable income within the nation, in contrast to within the aforementioned Eire-Apple State Help case, its arguments didn’t prevail in court docket: In a last ruling late final yr, the EU’s prime court docket struck down the Fee resolution, discovering that the EU had not established that the Luxembourg tax ruling was unlawful State Help. The upshot? Amazon was off the hook.