Home / Technology / Google Prevails in Court Challenge Against EU’s $1.7 Billion Antitrust Fine for Ad Product

Google Prevails in Court Challenge Against EU’s $1.7 Billion Antitrust Fine for Ad Product

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Google Prevails in Court Challenge Against EU's $1.7 Billion Antitrust Fine for Ad Product

On Wednesday, the European Union’s second-highest court ruled in favor of Google, stating that the €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) fine imposed on the tech giant by regulators should be annulled following its challenge to the ruling.

The case originates from 2019 when the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, accused Google, owned by Alphabet, of abusing its market dominance with its AdSense for Search product. This service enabled website owners to display ads in their own search results, with Google serving as an intermediary that allowed advertisers to serve ads on third-party websites.

However, the Commission alleged that Google abused its market dominance by including several restrictive clauses in its contracts with third-party websites, which effectively blocked competitors from placing their search ads on those sites. As a result, the Commission imposed a fine of €1.49 billion on Google. In response, Google appealed the decision, bringing the case to the EU’s General Court.

On Wednesday, the General Court stated that it “upholds the majority of the findings” but “annuls the decision” by which the Commission imposed a fine of nearly €1.5 billion. The court also noted that the Commission “failed to consider all relevant circumstances” in its evaluation of the duration of the contract clauses it had classified as abusive.

A Google spokesperson stated that the company would thoroughly review the full decision. “This case concerns a very narrow subset of text-only search ads displayed on a limited number of publishers’ websites. We modified our contracts in 2016 to eliminate the relevant provisions, even prior to the Commission’s decision. We are pleased that the court has acknowledged errors in the original ruling and annulled the fine,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Commission stated that it acknowledges the judgment and will consider its next steps. The Commission may choose to appeal this decision, which would escalate the matter to the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court. Recently, there has been a series of court cases involving the EU and U.S. tech companies that have reached their conclusions.

About Vijendra

Vijendra
Vijendra has a master’s degree in Marketing and editor with passion. Exploring economic policies of different economies and analyzing geo-politics policies is of keen interest. In his free time he is a hardcore metal-rock and punk music fanatic.

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