Google Wins Appeal Against $1.66 Billion EU Antitrust Fine
The EU's General Court said it was dismissing the 2019 penalty imposed on Google by the European Commission, which is the bloc's top antitrust enforcer.
Google on Wednesday won its challenge against a 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine imposed five years ago for infringements on rival companies in online search advertising. This comes a week after the tech-giant lost big case.
The EU’s General Court said it was dismissing the 2019 penalty imposed by the European Commission, which is the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer.
“The General Court annuls the Commission’s decision in its entirety,” the court said in a press release.
The bloc’s ruling applied to a narrow portion of Google’s ad business- ads that the company sold next to Google search results on third-party websites.
The European Commission in its 2019 verdict said Google, in a bid to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform had abused its dominance in providing search adverts. It said the illegal practices took place from 2006 to 2016.
The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the European Union regulators assessments of the case, however, it annulled the fine.
“The court (…) upheld most of the commission’s assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair,” the judges said.
The court’s ruling can be appealed, but only on points of law, to the Court of Justice, the commission’s top court. The commission said in a brief statement that it “will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.”
The AdSense fine, one of the three fines that have cost Google a total of 8.25 billion euros, was imposed after a petition from Microsoft (MSFT.O) in 2010.
Google contested saying it changed the targeted contracts in 2016 before the Commission’s decision.
The company last week lost its final battle against a 2.42 billion euro fine levied for using its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.
Last week, Europe’s top court ruled that Google must pay a €2.4bn (£2bn) fine for abusing the market dominance of its shopping comparison service.
The company had appealed against the fine, which was originally imposed by the European Commission in 2017.
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It was the largest penalty of that time the Commission had ever imposed – though it has since been superseded by a €4.3bn fine, also against Google.
Regulators worldwide, of late, are scrutinizing Google parent Alphabet with trials and investigations into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
