Brussels is preparing to hit Google next month for abusing its dominance through the Android mobile operating system, concluding the most important of a trio of EU antitrust investigations into the company.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, is poised to announce the negative finding within weeks, according to people familiar with the case, marking the most significant regulatory intervention made against Google’s business model.
A penalty is expected in the Android case, but its size is unclear. The commission is empowered to impose fines of up to $11bn — which is 10 per cent of the global turnover of Google’s parent company Alphabet — but typically decisions are at the lower end of the range.