EU's highest court in Android Auto: dominant digital platforms' positive obligation to facilitate interoperability for app users' convenience - no indispensability required
4 March 2025
On September 25, 2025, Europe's highest court, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), issued its judgment in Google Android Auto. The CJEU effectively held that a dominant digital platform can be required to develop inexistent interoperability information against appropriate remuneration to allow third-party digital app developers to feature on its platform, unless a refusal to do so is objectively justified based on security or technical grounds. According to the CJEU, because digital platforms are created to be shared with third parties, the exacting standard of "indispensability to compete" of traditional EU law on access to a dominant firm's proprietary infrastructure does not apply.
Clifford Chance
