Cancellation of Google’s 42.1 billion won fine keeps Play Store dispute before Supreme Court

Key Facts

Google’s dispute over the Play Store has reached South Korea’s Supreme Court after the Seoul High Court overturned an antitrust fine of 42.1 billion won while upholding the finding of competition rule violations, according to an MLex report on the September 2026 ruling. The company now faces judicial review of a case whose substance remains unresolved despite the financial penalty being overturned at the previous stage. The fine stemmed from a decision by the Korea Fair Trade Commission in July 2023. The commission said at the time that Google gave game developers benefits tied to its store in exchange for restricting or delaying game launches on rival store One Store. A Korean submission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the fine and corrective measures targeted abuse of dominance in the app platform market.

The conduct at issue centered on tying Play Store visibility benefits and overseas expansion support to a condition that game developers launch their titles exclusively on Google’s store or before doing so, rather than on One Store, according to the Seoul High Court. Korea’s submission said developers had to refrain from launching their games on the rival store or launch them there only after releasing them on Google’s store. The dispute therefore concerned not only whether developers received commercial support, but also the conditions attached to that support and how they affected distribution choices. The competition authority said the benefits included preferential visibility within the store and assistance with expansion into overseas markets. The Seoul High Court upheld the finding of a violation even as it overturned the amount of the fine imposed by the authority.

The fine was overturned because, according to the court, the competition authority defined the revenue base linked to the violation too broadly. The court said the calculation should be limited to revenue related to the five companies Google focused on supporting to launch games exclusively or first on its store. It also said revenue from non-gaming apps should be excluded from the calculation base. The court, however, found that the authority’s application of a fine rate of 2.3% was lawful. The ruling distinguishes the validity of the rate used from the amount of revenue to which it was applied: the former was upheld, while the latter was challenged as too broad.

Korea’s submission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the authority found that Google’s conditions weakened One Store’s ability to attract new games. It added that this led to lost sales at rival app stores and a decline in the value of its platform, strengthening Google’s market power. The authority also linked the case to user choices, saying they were denied opportunities to use games through One Store and benefit from its range of promotional offers. This assessment places the conduct’s impact at the center of competition for both developers and consumers. Access to games and promotions at the rival store was part of the harm Korea said resulted from delaying or preventing launches.

In a separate response to the authority’s allegations, Google told Reuters in July 2026 that Google Play “competes fairly with other app stores and offers many benefits to developers and consumers in Korea.” The company added that it had cooperated with the authority’s investigation and would continue to show that it had not broken the law. The comments address Google’s position on competition allegations in the Android app market, but do not change the appeal over the fine tied to conditions for launching games on One Store. In the separate proceeding, the competition authority’s secretariat began deliberations on 1 July 2026, after the examiner’s report was formally referred to the commission and the relevant parties. The Korean government said the examiner’s report does not bind the commission’s final decision.

The separate deliberations concern the Games/Google Velocity program, known internally as Project Hug, which provided financial support to local and foreign game developers between July 2019 and March 2026, according to Reuters. The authority said the program’s terms linked increased support to higher developer revenue through Google Play, strengthening incentives to favor the company’s store. The authority gave the companies covered by the case 8 weeks from receipt of the examiner’s report to submit written views and request access to or copies of evidence. It said it intended to hold a commission hearing and issue a decision after completing due process safeguards. This proceeding remains separate from the One Store case that reached the Supreme Court and the fine overturned by the Seoul High Court.

The next step in the One Store dispute depends on what the Supreme Court decides about the ruling. The eDaily newspaper reported that the competition authority said it would recalculate the scope of the fine if the ruling becomes final before the Supreme Court. This means the current cancellation does not rule out a new fine after the revenue base is narrowed, if the ruling stands as the report indicated. In the market, Alphabet’s Class A stock, listed under the symbol GOOGL, closed at 318.99 dollars on 26 October 2026, according to EL7 data. The close comes as investors follow the dispute, though the data provided no real-time price or prices for other companies’ shares.