Google and Apple lose their court fights against the EU and owe billions in fines and taxes

AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — Google has lost its final legal challenge against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine. The European Union’s Court of Justice upheld a lower court’s decision on Tuesday. It dismissed the company’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer. The commission’s original decision in 2017 accused Google of unfairly directing visitors to its Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-euro fines the commission imposed on Google in the past decade as Brussels ramped up its crackdown on the tech industry.