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The EU’s General Court has annulled a $1.7 billion fine against Google for anti-competitive advertising practices, according to Financial Times.
In 2019, the European Commission and its competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, claimed Google had prevented publishers from placing adverts from competitors on its search results pages for a decade, between 2006 and 2016.
The $1.7 billion fine imposed at the time was larger than expected due to the “serious and sustained nature” of Google’s actions.
Today, the EU’s General Court ruled that the Commission had failed to consider all the relevant circumstances when assessing “the duration of the contracted clauses that it had found to be unfair.”
Though the EU’s General Court admitted it accepted most of the assessments by the Commission relating to Google using its dominance to block competitors from advertising, it said it had made the decision to annul the fine.
In response, the Commission noted the judgment and said it would “reflect on possible next steps.” An appeal is likely, which, if successful, could see the decision to nix the fine reversed.
Google said it was pleased with the court’s decision and explained that the case related to a “very narrow subset of text-only search ads” on a small number of publishers’ websites. It made slight changes to its contracts in 2009 and removed the clause relating to the restriction in 2016, before the Commission’s decision.
Google’s EU Battles Continue
It’s been a busy few years of legal battles for Google in the EU. Three cases have been brought to court against the tech giant during the past several years, resulting in a total of around $9.17 billion in fines.
At the time of writing, the European Commission has an open case against Google relating to its dominance in the ad tech market. After Brussels’ threats to force the company to break up, the EU General Court is deciding whether to impose further fines on Google.
Earlier this month the European Court of Justice upheld a $2.7 billion fine imposed against Google in 2017, ruling it had abused its power by favoring its own shopping comparison service ahead of rivals.
