The European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued two rulings on Tuesday, imposing a €2.4 billion fine on Google for abuse of its dominant market position and ordered Apple to repay Ireland €13 billion in tax.

The court upheld the European General Court’s judgment and the European Commission’s decision to impose the fine against Google in 2017 for “having abused its dominant position in several national online search markets by favouring its own comparison shopping service over those of its competitors.” The European General Court upheld the commission’s decision in 2021 after Google and Alphabet challenged it.

The ECJ dismissed all four grounds of appeal raised by Google and its shareholder company, Alphabet Inc., in imposing the €2.4 billion fine. The court noted a prohibition on the “conduct of undertakings in a dominant position” results in “hindering competition on the merits and is thus likely to cause harm to individual undertakings and consumers.” The ECJ accordingly assessed that none of the appeals raised against the General Court’s judgment were successful.

In 2017, the Commission found that on its general search results pages, Google had given preference to “the results of its own shopping service over those of competing comparison shopping services,” allowing it to “abuse the dominant position it held” in 13 countries within the European Economic Area dating back to 2008. The Commission noted that Google used “attractive image and text information” to present its own comparison shopping service whilst presenting the search results of competing comparison shopping services as “simple generic results.” The General Court upheld the Commission’s decision but found that Google’s conduct did not have “anticompetitive effects on the market for general search services.”

The court also issued a final judgment against Apple for receiving tax advantages from Ireland from 1991 to 2014, ordering Ireland to recover the estimated €13 billion of illegal tax benefits from the Apple Group. The ECJ set aside the 2020 judgment of the General Court, upholding the European Commission’s 2016 decision. The Commission found that the tax advantages Ireland granted Apple constituted State aid “related to the tax treatment of profits generated by Apple’s activities outside the United States.”

The Commission’s decision concerned tax rulings Ireland issued in 1991 and 2007 to two incorporated companies—Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe (AOE)—part of the Apple group that were not tax residents in Ireland, and the subsequent profits generated from their intellectual property licenses. The Commission “concluded that the contested tax rulings had reduced the charges ASI and AOE would normally have been required to bear in the course of their business operations,” resulting in the Apple group benefitting from “state aid that was unlawful and incompatible with the internal market.”

The General Court ruled that “the Commission had been unable to show that there was a selective advantage that arose from the adoption of the tax rulings.” The ECJ set aside the General Court judgment, noting it erred in upholding the complaints raised by Ireland, the ASI and the AOE concerning the Commission’s factual assessment and ruling against the Commission’s decision.