EU Court of Justice: The refusal of Google - a company in a dominant position - to ensure the interoperability of its platform with an application of another company may be abusive.

The refusal of Google, an undertaking in a dominant position, which has developed a digital platform, to allow access to that platform, by refusing to ensure the interoperability of the latter with an application developed by a third-party undertaking, may constitute an abuse of a dominant position even if the platform is not indispensable for the commercial exploitation of the application.

Such abuse may be found where the platform has been developed with a view to enabling its use by third-party undertakings and is capable of making the application more attractive to consumers. However, the refusal may be justified by the non-existence of a model for the category of applications concerned at the time of the request for access by the third-party undertaking, when the granting of interoperability would compromise the security or integrity of the platform, or when it would be impossible for other technical reasons to ensure such interoperability. In other cases, the dominant undertaking is required to develop such a model, within a reasonable period necessary for that purpose and, where appropriate, in return for appropriate economic consideration.

These principles were established by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment in Case C-233/23 | Alphabet and Others