QCOM QUALCOMM Inc

BRUSSELS—For Google, it's a tale of two continents.

On one side of the Atlantic, European competition authorities unveiled on Wednesday a second set of charges against the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary, this time over its Android operating system. On the other side, Canada dropped its probe against the company this week, following U.S. regulators who have so far found that Google's conduct raises no antitrust concerns.

Why the difference? Many Americans assume it is largely explained by a protectionist European response to the dominance of U.S. technology companies.

European Union officials vehemently deny any such effort. Experts in competition law say the trans-Atlantic divide is explained by a host of other factors, including contrasting legal processes, distinct views on the free market and different benchmarks for what constitutes anticompetitive behavior.

True, Google and the other U.S. tech giants don't have the political sway in Brussels that European officials believe they have in Washington, where they have provided an important growth story since the 2008 financial crisis.

But a bigger contrast lies in the greater power that resides in the competition authority in Europe and in the person of the competition commissioner, Danish politician Margrethe Vestager, who took over in November 2014.

Since Ms. Vestager took over, her department has targeted America's biggest tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc. and Qualcomm Inc., with a slew of antitrust probes. Some major U.S. corporations are among companies that have found their tax deals with European governments under scrutiny using her department's powers to investigate illegal state aid.

Google has been her highest-profile target. She announced charges last year related to Google's comparison shopping service, a case started by her predecessor. But the Android case was launched under her watch and carries her personal signature.

In its various investigations into Google's conduct, the commission has clashed with Google over the tech giant's alleged maneuvers to exploit its powerful position to prioritize the company's own services and impede rival efforts. In Android and through the company's shopping service, it views Google as hurting consumers by limiting their options.

But in response to the commission's charges against Android, Google general counsel Kent Walker rejected the claims, saying the mobile operating system was "good for competition and good for consumers."

In her speeches on her approach to the role, Ms. Vestager has emphasized fairness, suggesting she is looking out for the underdog who may find it hard to enter markets dominated by behemoths.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, she said that the law should ensure small players have "a fair fighting chance."

"Even though some [companies] are big, they are not above the law," she said.

In the U.S., antitrust regulators have a high bar, needing to prove a criminal case in a court that can mete out jail sentences as well as fines. Class-action lawsuits can multiply the financial damage to those found guilty, also increasing the deterrent to anticompetitive behavior.

In the EU, the process is administrative. Nobody will go to jail and the worst outcome will be fines, of up to 10% of company revenues, and demands to change conduct.

An appeal is possible to the EU's top court, but lawyers say the court tends to look for legal and procedural errors rather than to create precedent for future competition cases.

David Anderson, Brussels-based partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, says some in the U.S. are uncomfortable with a process in which they see the commission acting as "prosecutor, judge and jury" in relation to antitrust investigations, decisions and fines.

Nicolas Petit, a professor of competition law at the University of Liè ge, said the U.S. approach is more free-market driven than the European. EU case law on the abuse of market dominance is significantly stricter than in the U.S.

He said the EU focuses more on protecting small companies from being put out of business by bigger rivals. "They're more worried about the big size of some companies," he said. "Big is bad."

A remote risk of anticompetitive consequences is enough to find liability in Europe, whereas U.S. officials must satisfy a higher burden of proof, he said.

"If you're a dominant company operating in Europe, there's a presumption against you that any aggressive behavior, like aggressive pricing for example, is abusive," he said.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com and Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2016 20:45 ET (00:45 GMT)

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