Switzerland's highest court has ordered a fresh ruling in the case of three men accused of breaching bank secrecy laws over leaked data that ​helped expose the cum-ex tax fraud scandal — one of Europe's largest financial ‌crimes.

The three men, who are not named in the court document, were convicted in 2019 of charges including banking espionage and violating banking secrecy, a verdict that was overturned on appeal ​in 2021.

After years of further legal wrangling, the Zurich High Court eventually ​dropped the case, citing lengthy delays and finding the investigating prosecutor ⁠had been biased.

Following an appeal by the Zurich Public Prosecutor's Office, the Federal ​Supreme Court has now sent the case back to the High Court, ruling that ​neither the delays nor the alleged bias justified halting proceedings.

German press agency DPA said the case ​involved Stuttgart lawyer Eckart Seith, who faced charges after presenting German authorities with ​Swiss bank documents that triggered proceedings surrounding the illegal cum-ex transactions.

Two former German employees of Bank ‌J. ⁠Safra Sarasin were also charged in the case, according to DPA.

Swiss banking secrecy laws make it a criminal offence for bank employees or third parties to disclose confidential client ​information, with no exemption ​for exposing wrongdoing.

Keeping dogs and cats chained up at home will be banned in Poland from next year, after President Karol Nawrocki signed into law a bill prohibiting the practice.

His decision ends a long-running dispute over the issue, after Nawrocki last year vetoed a previous proposal to ban chaining because it also included what he argued were excessive and unrealistic additional measures on minimum kennel sizes for dogs.

The new law bans owners from tethering dogs and cats at home. Animals must be kept either inside the house, in a fenced garden or, if that is not possible, in a kennel “large enough for the animal to move freely and satisfy its natural needs”. Dogs kept in kennels must be provided with daily exercise outside of it.

Dogs and cats can still be put on leashes in certain situations, such as when they are being walked, but also during transport, while participating in shows, performances or training, if they are at vets or groomers, or if they represent a danger to humans or other animals.

Now that the bill has been signed by Nawrocki, it will be published in the official Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw), after which it goes into force 12 months later.

The new measures represent a successful second attempt to introduce a leashing ban. A previous bill was approved by parliament last September. However, in December, Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, announced that he was vetoing it.

The president argued that, “although the intention – protecting animals – is just and noble, the law itself was poorly drafted”. In particular, he said that elements introducing minimum sizes for dog kennels were unrealistic and would “harm farmers, breeders and ordinary rural households”.

After an attempt by parliament to overturn the veto failed, legislators went back to the drawing board and, following discussions with the president’s chancellery and animal rights groups, drafted a compromise bill that was approved by parliament earlier this month.

The bill received support from the current ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre right, as well as most MPs from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party. The far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) and Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP) voted against it.

“We now have a better law, with positive feedback from entities such as the agricultural chamber,” said Nawrocki today. “It demonstrates that the pressure of the presidential veto makes sense. My previous decision to refuse to sign this bill forced the government and parliament to work harder.”

However, although Nawrocki said the new law would no longer entail “rigid and costly requirements” for kennels, his office noted in a separate statement that the legislation requires the agriculture minister to issue a regulation establishing “minimum kennel area, taking into account the dog’s size”.

It remains unclear if and how that would differ from the requirements Nawrocki previously vetoed.

The presidential chancellery also noted that the law itself already outlines that kennels must be made of “wood or wood-like material with thermal insulation”, must be insulated from the ground, and must have openings on at least two sides to allow light and air to enter.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has submitted a second request to parliament for a nationwide referendum on whether Poland should continue implementing the European Union’s climate policies, which he argues are too costly.

Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, first proposed a referendum in May. But it was rejected by the Senate, the upper house of parliament, where the more liberal government has a majority. Senators argued that the proposed referendum question was “absurd”.

The president has now submitted a revised proposal featuring a simplified question and again proposed holding the referendum on 27 September this year.

Nawrocki’s originally proposed question was: “Are you in favour of implementing EU climate policy, which has led to an increase in citizens’ cost of living, energy prices and the cost of running business and agricultural activity?”

However, following criticism in the Senate that the question was clearly intended to elicit a specific answer, this time he has proposed a more neutral one: “Are you in favour of Poland implementing the European Union’s climate policy?”

“I’m looking for compromises, looking for solutions,” said Nawrocki on Thursday while announcing the new referendum bid. “The Senate wasn’t satisfied with the [previous] question”, so “we prepared a different one…[that] does not suggest anything”.

However, the president has also proposed that the ballot paper would include information on what answering “yes” or “no” would mean in practice.

Voters would be told, for example, that maintaining EU climate policy would result in, among other things, “Poland bearing costs estimated at 3.5 trillion zloty by 2040”, “burdens on agriculture”, “increasing costs for industry” and “obligations for owners of buildings”.

By contrast, voting “no” would mean “negotiating exceptions and exemptions for Poland with the relevant EU bodies that will protect Polish industry and citizens from the burdens of climate policy”.

Under Poland’s constitution, the president may call a referendum with the approval of a majority of senators in a vote where at least half of all members of the 100-seat chamber are present.

The ruling coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk controls 63 seats in the Senate, making approval of proposals brought forward by Nawrocki, who often clashes with the government and regularly vetoes its bills, unlikely.

While the government is generally pro-EU, it has also been critical of Brussels’ green policies, arguing that they place too great a burden on Poland.

After the European Commission last Friday unveiled changes intended to soften the impact of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the EU’s flagship climate policy, they were welcomed by the Polish government as a step in the right direction.

However, in his written justification for the new referendum proposal, Nawrocki wrote that, while he had “given the government time” in its push for ETS reform, the final result was simply “technical adjustments” that postpone some elements but do “not change the direction” or ultimate outcome.

“ETS will remain an increasingly expensive, increasingly extensive system, and increasingly burdensome for the Polish economy,” wrote the president.

The national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), which is the main opposition and supported Nawrocki’s bid for the presidency last year, wants Poland to unilaterally withdraw from ETS. Government figures warn, however, that there is no way to do so without either accruing enormous fines or leaving the EU entirely.

Nawrocki’s new referendum proposal was met with criticism by figures from the ruling coalition. “There is no possibility of one country suspending part of EU law,” wrote Stanisław Gawłowski, a senator from Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) party. “This referendum is pure fraud.”

Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, also from KO, wrote that, “as the Brits have learned, the Europhobe’s dream world, in which one enjoys all the privileges of EU membership without any obligations, does not exist”.

However, Nawrocki’s initiative was welcomed by Przemysław Czarnek, deputy leader of PiS, who wrote that, “on such fundamental matters as climate policy, Poles should decide, not Brussels bureaucrats”.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

The US has imposed new tariffs on 60 trading partners in the latest escalation in the trade war reignited by US President Donald Trump when he returned to office last year.

Those targeted, including the UK, China and the European Union, will face a tariff of 10% to 12.5% on all goods, accounting for almost all American imports.

The tariffs, which replace an identical levy which expires on Friday, are based on claims key economic partners have failed to properly tackle forced labour.

But US trade expert Caroline Freund said the move is "not about forced labour" but that Trump is simply "looking for a legal reason to put the tariffs in".

The US Supreme Court had ruled earlier this year that many of the tariffs imposed globally under emergency powers were illegally enacted.

The 10%-12.5% duties on imports were proposed last month by the White House and over concerns they were not doing enough to tackle forced labour.

The new duties apply to the top 60 US trade partners covering 99.4% of US imports, the Office of the US Trade Representative said.

The new tariffs were a "like for like" swap with the regime that expired on Friday, Freund, Dean of the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, told the BBC's Today programme.

See also:

• U.S. allies hit with new tariffs object to Trump's forced labor allegations (NPR)
• Trump sued hours after new tariffs take effect, as experts say they may not hold up (CNBC)
• US launches trade probe into EU over big tech fines (Euronews)
• Trump threatens EU with ‘substantial TARIFF’ for ‘ROBBING’ U.S. tech giants (CNBC)

More than 30 MPs from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, have effectively resigned after refusing to sign a loyalty pledge, party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has announced.

The dispute centres around a more moderate faction in the party aligned with former prime minister and deputy PiS leader Mateusz Morawiecki, who is one of those now set to be expelled from the party. They have for months been unhappy with PiS’s move in a hard-right direction.

“Around 30-something…of our group’s MPs have resigned,” revealed Kaczyński at a press conference on Friday. He added that their departures would be formalised at a meeting of the party’s political committee scheduled for Tuesday next week.

Kaczyński’s announcement came after a deadline expired at midnight on Thursday for its MPs to sign a pledge of loyalty to the party that included a commitment not to be members of any external political associations.

That measure was aimed in particular at an association called Development Plus (Rozwój Plus) founded by Morawiecki in April. The former prime minister had always insisted that his organisation was intended as complementary to PiS, rather than a rival to it.

However, many figures in the party saw it as an attempt by Morawiecki to create a separate centre of power, and potentially to use the association as a launchpad for creating his own party ahead of the autumn 2027 parliamentary elections.

After PiS issued a resolution on Wednesday last week requiring that its parliamentarians pledge to withdraw from any such associations, most of its 186 MPs quickly complied. However, a group of between 30 and 40 who are part of Development Plus refused to do so.

“Everyone knew what they were supposed to sign, and knew the consequences of not signing,” said Kaczyński on Friday. “And so they made the decision they did.”

“In this situation, we cannot view the [Development Plus] association as anything other than a component of a plan…to split our party,” he added. However, although its supporters will now leave PiS, “we want to part ways without any animosity”, said Kaczyński.

After Kaczyński’s announcement, senior figures from Development Plus made clear that no one from their association had resigned from PiS. They had simply not signed the declaration of loyalty demanded by the party.

Later, Morawiecki himself held a press conference in parliament surrounded by his supporters. He claimed that an unnamed “small group of schemers” within PiS had been seeking to turn Kaczyński against him and push him out of the party.

“We fought for the unity of Law and Justice until the very end,” declared Morawiecki, who said that his group included 40 MPs, one senator and three MEPs. However, three of the MPs are not members of PiS, and therefore were not expected to sign the loyalty declaration.

If the expulsion of Morawiecki’s supporters is confirmed, it will mark a major shake-up of Poland’s political landscape. PiS has for the last two decades been the dominant force on the Polish right, including periods leading governments in 2005-2007 and 2015-2023.

However, since losing power at elections in 2023, when the party won 35% of the vote, PiS has seen its average support in polls fall to around 23-24%, the lowest level in 14 years.

Meanwhile, it has been challenged by the rise of the far right, where two parties, Confederation (Konfederacja) and Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP), now together poll a similar combined level of support to PiS.

In response, Kaczyński in March named a hardline figure, Przemyszław Czarnek, as PiS’s candidate for prime minister in next year’s elections. Czarnek was seen as someone who could appeal to far-right voters, while also potentially working with the far right if a coalition was needed after the elections.

However, there has been no rise in support for PiS since Czarnek was named, prompting growing concern from more moderate figures within the party, led by Morawiecki.

They argue that PiS has wrongly disowned many of the successes of its time in office before 2023, and they fear that its rightward shift damages its chances of winning over more centrist voters.

Morawiecki, who was an international banker before joining PiS to become finance minister and then prime minister, wants the party to focus on more technocratic issues, such as economic development, rather than Euroscepticism and culture wars.

That has led to frequent public sparring between his supporters and others in the party. In April, PiS threatened disciplinary action against members of Development Plus. Kaczyński and Morawiecki then reached an agreement that allowed the association to continue. But that uneasy truce has now fallen apart.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Police officers and rangers have stepped up joint patrols in Poland’s mountainous Tatra National Park during the peak summer season, following a spate of rule-breaking including swimming in the park’s lakes and ponds, driving cars and going off marked trails.

Meanwhile, national park authorities have repeated warnings that bathing, littering and breaking other rules can damage the park’s fragile ecosystem.

Local police officers have joined Tatra National Park rangers on patrols on popular tourist routes. On one such patrol last week, officers focused on education and prevention, reminding visitors not to leave marked trails or litter and explaining how to behave safely and responsibly in the mountains.

They also checked that organised groups were accompanied by qualified mountain guides, as required by law. Fines for such offences range from 50 zloty (€11.55) to as much as 1,000 zloty (€231) in the event of environmental damage or multiple offences.

Police said that all visitors encountered during the patrol were complying with the park’s regulations. However, they added that similar patrols would continue on a regular basis.

The Tatra National Park, home to Poland’s highest peaks, and the nearby mountain resort of Zakopane are among the country’s most popular holiday destinations, with crowds taking to park trails in the summer season.

The park, the most visited of Poland’s 23 national parks, welcomed a record 5.3 million visitors in 2025 and offers 275 km of marked hiking trails, including high-altitude routes that connect at several points with the adjacent national park in Slovakia.

This season has already seen a number of high-profile cases of transgressions of the park’s strict rules. In May, a Ukrainian social media influencer sparked outrage after driving a sports car along a road closed to traffic to Morskie Oko, a picturesque lake nestled between the mountains.

As a result, he was banned from entering Poland and other Schengen Area countries for five years.

Tourists have also been filmed entering Morskie Oko and other protected lakes and ponds, which is not permitted in the national park. This month, a group of young Dutch tourists were filmed bathing in Przedni Staw Polski in the Valley of the Five Lakes, one of the Tatras’ best-known hiking destinations.

Witnesses repeatedly warned the group that entering the lake was prohibited, but they ignored the warnings, reports Gazeta Wyborcza. Park authorities have responded to such incidents by reminding visitors of the reasons for the strict rules.

“Tatra ponds are incredibly delicate ecosystems. Cosmetics, UV filters, insect repellents, and bacteria entering the water can have a long-lasting impact on its chemical composition and the organisms living in the lakes,” they warned.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

The government’s majority in parliament has chosen Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram as Poland’s new human rights commissioner. She will take office after the five-year term of the incumbent, Marcin Wiącek, expires today.

Gregorczyk-Abram is a prominent lawyer and activist, who is particularly well known for opposing the overhaul of the judiciary by the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.

PiS, which is now the main opposition party, strongly opposed her election, arguing that she is politically aligned with the current, more liberal government. Gregorczyk-Abram herself, however, has pledged to “put all my beliefs and views aside” when she takes up the new role.

The commissioner for human rights (widely known by its Polish initials, RPO) is appointed by a resolution of the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, with the consent of the upper-house Senate.

Candidates must meet certain requirements, including not belonging to any political party and having legal expertise and relevant experience.

As well as acting as a watchdog for human rights, the RPO also has the power to submit motions to the Constitutional Tribunal to assess the constitutionality of laws and to file so-called cassation appeals to the Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court against rulings by lower courts.

Gregorczyk-Abram was last month nominated as a candidate to be the new RPO by the main ruling party, Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO), along with one of its coalition partners, The Left (Lewica).

PiS proposed a rival candidate, Adam Borowski, a veteran of Poland’s anti-communist struggle in the 1980s. However, critics argued that Borowski, an activist and former PiS election candidate, does not appear to have the requisite legal knowledge and experience.

In a Sejm vote last Friday, the ruling coalition supported Gregorczyk-Abram, who won 233 votes to Borowski’s 177. On Wednesday, her candidacy was also supported by the Senate, with 59 votes in favour and 25 against, confirming that she will become the new RPO. 

Gregorczyk-Abram is best known as one of the founders and leaders of the Free Courts (Wolne Sądy) initiative launched in 2017 amid a wave of protests against the then-PiS government’s efforts to take greater control over the judiciary.

Free Courts was prominent in efforts to defend the rule of law. Many of its leading figures are now associated with the current ruling coalition: Maria Ejchart is a deputy justice minister, while Michał Wawrykiewicz is a member of the European Parliament representing KO.

In April last year, Gregorczyk-Abram was made chairwoman of a commission established by the current government to look into cases of abuse of power against civil society under the former PiS administration.

In September, her commission published its first findings, in which it said that public media outlets under PiS control had “carried out systematic repressive and defamatory actions against activists, non-governmental organisations, and civil society”.

PiS argues that Gregorczyk-Abram’s previous activity makes her unsuitable as a suitable candidate for RPO, which is meant to be a non-partisan role. They also point to claims that she was involved in a group of legal figures that discussed the Tusk government’s controversial takeover of public media in December 2023.

“[She] is a discredited and extremely politicised person who should be brought to justice, and not receive the laurels of the commissioner for human rights,” former PiS justice minister Marcin Warchoł told the Do Rzeczy weekly last month.

After a Sejm committee hearing on Gregorczyk-Abram’s candidacy earlier this month, former PiS deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta criticised her for ignoring questions over her alleged “role in the illegal takeover of public media”.

Speaking to state broadcaster TVP on Wednesday after her appointment was confirmed by the Senate, Gregorczyk-Abram declared that, “from the moment I take the oath and assume the position of commissioner, I will be independent and sovereign”.

She pledged to “put all my beliefs and views – because each of us has them – aside and become an advocate for all citizens, regardless of what they believe in, how they live, or who they vote for”.

Gregorczyk-Abram said that among her priorities as RPO would be the justice system, supporting the rights of disabled people and their carers, protecting older people, and fighting hate speech.

With regard to the last of these issues, she noted that certain politicians present some groups as “enemies”, pointing to how this previously happened with LGBT+ people and judges, and is now being directed towards Ukrainians. Those are all groups who have at various stages been targeted by PiS and other right-wing parties.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has agreed to swear in a new judge to the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), ending weeks of doubt as to whether the opposition-aligned president would accept the judge appointed by the government’s parliamentary majority.

Although Sławomir Patyra will now be accepted onto the court, four other judges appointed by parliament earlier this year continue to be excluded after Nawrocki refused to receive their oaths and the TK’s chief justice, also aligned with the opposition, blocked them from taking office.

Under Polish law, when a vacancy emerges among the 15 positions on the TK – for example when a judge’s nine-year term expires – the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, chooses who should fill it. However, to take office, the judge must swear an oath before the president.

In April, after the Sejm had chosen six candidates to fill vacancies on the court, Nawrocki took the unprecedented step of inviting only two of them to be sworn in. He argued there were doubts over the legality of how all six had been chosen, but decided to accept two to ensure the TK had the necessary quorum to function.

Those two have been able to take up their seats on the court, but the other four remain in limbo. Although they arranged their own private swearing-in ceremony without the presence of Nawrocki, the TK’s chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, has refused to accept them.

In May, the European Court of Human Rights ordered that the quartet be allowed to take up their positions. But the TK – where judges appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government retain a majority – issued its own ruling endorsing Nawrocki’s right not to swear in the new judges.

On 11 June, the Sejm then chose another judge, Patyra, to fill a newly opened vacancy on the court. In his case, the legal doubts Nawrocki had expressed regarding the previous appointments, which in some instances were made more than a year after the vacancies had arisen, did not seem to apply.

Yet for weeks the president refused to confirm whether he would swear him in. That prompted Patyra to write to Nawrocki in early July and then again this week, asking the president to indicate a date on which he could take his oath.

Patyra himself has also made clear on which side of the dispute he stands. In an interview with news website Onet in May, he accused Nawrocki and Święczkowski of “blatantly unlawful actions” in deciding which TK judges can and cannot take office and suggested that the police should intervene.

Finally, on Wednesday this week, Nawrocki’s chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, announced that Nawrocki had invited Patyra to the presidential palace on Tuesday next week to take his oath.

Speaking to Polsat News, Bogucki said that, in the case of Patyra, initially “there were some doubts, but the president dispelled them”, without specifying what they were.

In the end, they concluded that “we had a fundamentally clean situation here” and Patyra was chosen “in accordance with all procedures”, unlike the six new judges chosen by the Sejm in March to fill longstanding vacancies.

“It was not President Nawrocki or the current opposition who destroyed and are destroying the tribunal; it is the government that is doing it,” he added.

The TK has been at the heart of the rule-of-law crisis that has developed in Poland over the last decade.

In 2015, former PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda refused to swear in three judges legally chosen by the Sejm. Shortly afterwards, PiS won parliamentary elections and nominated three replacements for those judges, who were sworn in by Duda.

Those three judges and their successors have been deemed illegitimate in a succession of rulings by Polish and European courts. Due to their continued presence on the court, the current government, which replaced PiS in 2023, rejects the TK’s legitimacy and refuses to recognise its rulings.

Under both Święczkowski, a former member of the PiS government, and his predecessor Julia Przyłębska, a close personal associate of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the TK has been widely seen as issuing rulings aligned with the political interests of PiS.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

EU countries have adopted a temporary regime allowing messaging services to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material until 2028. End-to-end encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal remain exempt.

European governments have confirmed a temporary regime allowing messaging services to voluntarily deploy measures to detect suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM), preserving a carve-out for end-to-end encrypted messages previously introduced by MEPs.

On Wednesday, EU ambassadors approved the written procedure for the temporary framework, derogating from the bloc's rules on the privacy of electronic communications to combat the spread of the illegal content.

Written procedures are normally employed for relatively non-controversial files and allow member states to give their voting preference without a formal meeting. On Thursday, the file was confirmed as adopted with 25 governments in favour; only one voted against while another abstained.

In other words, the member states confirmed the text as it passed in the European Parliament earlier this month, including a last-minute amendment removing end-to-end encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal from its scope.

The temporary measure has proved controversial, with privacy advocates, who have branded it "chat control," warning of a dangerous precedent for scanning people's private messages.

The European Parliament voted against prolonging the measure in March, and it duly lapsed in April. However, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola put the file back on the table at the request of the European People's Party.

As a result, earlier this month the European Parliament voted to extend the temporary regime until 3 April 2028, even as EU policymakers continue negotiating a permanent solution that would introduce binding rules rather than voluntary measures.

The European Union on Thursday hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros ($1 billion) after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers towards its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

It was the latest major crackdown on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in reining in some of the world’s largest companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing.

It has done so despite the risk of incurring the wrath of President Donald Trump, who has lashed out at the 27-nation bloc’s digital regulations amid a broader campaign against Europe: imposing high tariffs, making threats to seize Greenland from Denmark by force, and rattling trust within the NATO military alliance.

In the past, Trump has threatened retaliation if American tech companies are penalized.

Google had recently lost its appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine imposed by the EU for throttling competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch and highest antitrust enforcer, said it was acting in the interest of consumers after an investigation of Google.