Top 10 EU tech antitrust actions

The US innovates and the EU regulates, or so some transatlantic players like to say. We won’t get into that noise here, but two things are clear: the bloc’s single market has its own set of rules, and quite a few US tech giants have violated EU competition rules over the past few decades. Make of that what you will.

Earlier this month, as she celebrated winning several important antitrust appeals against Apple and Google, outgoing EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager jokingly called Big Tech some of her best clients. Ouch.

We’ve compiled a list of the EU’s 10 biggest antitrust actions against tech to give you a snapshot of the most high-profile — if not always significant — competitive tussles between Brussels and the industry giants over the past few decades of digital growth. The list is sorted by the size of the fine or liability.

While it’s fair to say that the track record of EU antitrust enforcement in tech has been mixed, one lasting legacy is that some of these high-profile cases inspired the Digital Markets Act: a flagship competition reform that could see major tech players hit harder and faster in the years to come. It’s finally time for Big Tech to buckle down.

Apple tax breaks in Ireland

Nobody is happy paying taxes, much less claiming unpaid back taxes. But in September 2018, Apple had just finished giving the EU a shocking 13.1 billion euros (worth $15.3 billion at the time) after the EU won a lawsuit against one of its member states, Ireland, over illegal tax breaks granted to Apple between 1991 and 2014.

The state aid case, which largely falls under the bloc’s competition rules, has been working its way through EU appeal courts. But in September 2024, the European Court of Justice confirmed the Commission’s original August 2016 ruling that state aid was illegal.

With the highest court now making a final ruling (rather than sending the case back to a lower court), all legal options for Apple to challenge the decision have now been exhausted, and the billions of dollars in unpaid taxes sitting in an EU escrow account will finally flow into Irish coffers.

Google Android Restrictions for OEMs

Micromanaging the software that mobile device makers could bundle with the Android operating system—to deliver their own goods to Android users regardless of their choice of hardware—has gotten Google into expensive trouble in the EU in recent years. About $5 billion, in fact, for abusing its dominant position. The Commission’s 2018 decision to sanction Google for abusing its dominant position was, and remains, a record fine for this category of competition abuse.

Original EU 4.34 billion euros The fine imposed on Google was slightly reduced to €4.125 billion in the September 2022 appeal decision of the Court of First Instance. However, the judges largely upheld the Commission’s original decision, rejecting Google’s request to set aside the enforcement.

Google Shopping Preferences

In June 2017, Google recorded another (then) record result 2.42 billion euros a fine for abusing its dominant position — this time related to the way the company runs its product comparison service, Google Shopping (formerly known as Google Product Search, and before that under the pun-filled name Froogle).

The block found that Google had not only unfairly favored its own (eponymous) comparison shopping service in organic search results, a market the tech giant almost entirely captured in Europe, but had also actively demoted rival comparison shopping services. The multibillion-dollar fine — worth about $2.73 billion at the time of its announcement — was subsequently confirmed by a September 2024 decision by the EU’s highest court.

Apple’s Anti-Steering Feature for iOS Music Streaming

The EU has adopted a competition theory of harm, accusing Apple of exploiting consumers rather than of exclusionary conduct, as part of its long-standing enforcement action against Apple in the iOS music streaming market.

The bloc’s competition division has changed tack several times as it investigates iOS developer complaints about the App Store operator. But in March 2024, it finally struck Apple 1.84 billion euros fine (around $2 billion) for banning iPhone users from notifying them of cheaper deals available outside the Apple store. The vast majority of the financial sanctions — a full €1.8 billion — were imposed on top of the EU’s standard compensation calculation, which the bloc says would act as a deterrent. (Without that, the fine would have been just €40 million — or the equivalent of a “parking ticket” for Big Tech.)

Google AdSense Service Limitations

Another antitrust penalty of more than $1 billion was imposed on Google for abusing its dominant position in March 2019, when the bloc sanctioned the company for its search advertising brokerage business. The commission found that between 2006 and 2016, the company used restrictive clauses in customer contracts to squeeze out competing ad brokers. The fine, which is 1.49 billion euros (i.e. approximately $1.7 billion) was duly imposed.

However, in September 2024, despite upholding most of the Commission’s findings, the General Court of the European Union annulled the AdSense decision in its entirety due to errors in the way the Commission assessed the duration of Google’s contracts. The question remains whether the EU will appeal.

The Commission has another (open) case investigating Google’s adtech stack more broadly, which could also make the AdSense case look like small beer. Margrethe Vestager warned last year that if the suspected violations were confirmed, structural separation (i.e. breaking up Google) might be the only viable solution.

Price-fixing cartel for computer monitors and TV parts

In 2012, the EU provided a total of 1.47 billion euros on cartels related to the sale of components used in the production of computer monitors and televisions. From 1996 to 2006, enforcement of the law on the fixing of prices of cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) embroiled many electronics giants. These components were used in computer monitors and televisions in the era before flat screens, and the Commission found that computer equipment manufacturers had colluded to fix prices. Fines were imposed on seven electronics giants that were involved in one or two CRT cartels, including LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba.

Exclusionary practices of chip manufacturer Intel

Going back even further in time, we reach May 2009, which was a record day at the time 1.06 billion euros antitrust penalty for chipmaker Intel after the EU found the U.S. giant had abused its dominant position to exclude rival AMD. Intel paid computer makers and retailers to postpone, cancel or otherwise avoid using or selling AMD products, and the EU found that these exclusionary practices violated competition rules.

The chipmaker appealed the EU’s enforcement with some success over the next decade on legal arguments. In 2017, the Court of Justice overturned an earlier lower judgment and referred the case back to the Court of First Instance, which then annulled part of the Commission’s decision while acknowledging that some of Intel’s practices were illegal.

The court overturned the original fine in its entirety due to uncertainty over the calculation, but last year the EU re-imposed a €376.36 million fine on Intel for “bare restrictions,” which the court upheld. Appeals are ongoing, so where this enforcement will ultimately end remains to be seen.

Qualcomm’s mobile chips deal with Apple

In early 2018, it was the turn of mobile chip maker Qualcomm to be hit with a stiff EU antitrust penalty: 997 million euros (or about $1.23 billion at the time). The sanction related to abuse of dominant position between 2011 and 2016. Enforcement focused on Qualcomm’s relationship with Apple, with the EU finding that the company had excluded rival chipmakers from the market for supplying LTE baseband chipsets by paying Apple for exclusive use of its chips in iPhones and iPads.

However, Qualcomm appealed the decision, and in June 2022, the General Court of the European Union ruled in its favor, rejecting the Commission’s analysis and finding certain procedural errors in its case. The EU later confirmed it would not appeal the ruling, so it is one of the significant antitrust fines that has not made it beyond the headlines.

The bloc had better luck in a separate (longer-running) antitrust case against the chipmaker: in September 2024, the Court of First Instance largely upheld the Commission’s fine of just under $270 million against Qualcomm in a predatory pricing case.

Microsoft’s Anti-Competitive Licensing Practices

We have to turn the clock back to March 2004 to get to the moment when the EU slapped Microsoft for abusing its dominant position in the Windows operating system. At that time, the record holder 497 million euros the fine (approximately USD 794 million) would be worth approximately EUR 762 million (or approximately USD 1.3 billion) today, taking into account inflation in the eurozone (according to this tool).

The original complaint that sparked an investigation into Microsoft’s licensing and royalty practices dates back to 1993. The EU’s enforcement against Microsoft was upheld on appeal. In addition to the fine, the bloc ordered various remedies, including interoperability requirements, and a second, larger fine of €899 million was imposed on Microsoft in February 2008 for non-compliance. A 2012 decision by the EU’s Court of First Instance upheld the non-compliance penalty but slightly reduced the non-compliance fine to €860 million.

Luxembourg’s tax treaty with Amazon

In an October 2017 state aid case, the EU argued that Luxembourg, the member state where e-commerce giant Amazon has its regional headquarters, had granted the company “undue tax advantages” between May 2006 and June 2014. The commission found that Amazon’s corporate structure in the country allowed the company to pay four times less tax than other companies based there — a tax advantage the EU calculated at around 250 million euros. (The EU does not impose penalties for state aid, but does order the recovery of any unduly collected taxes.)

But while the Commission has questioned Luxembourg’s method of calculating Amazon’s taxable profits in that country, unlike in the aforementioned Ireland-Apple state aid case, its arguments have not held up in court: In a final ruling late last year, the EU’s top court overturned the Commission’s decision, finding that the EU had failed to show that Luxembourg’s tax ruling amounted to illegal state aid. The result? Amazon escaped liability.