Google has successfully overturned a €1.5 billion antitrust fine it was handed by the European Commission five years ago. Judges at the European General Court annulled the decision because the Commission had made errors in its assessment of the company’s advertising contracts.
The fine marked the third major antitrust penalty against the search giant by the EU in the last decade, following earlier fines related to Android and Google Shopping. However, this is the first of them to be overturned. Specifically, the Commission had not demonstrated that Google’s contracts with publishers had potentially deterred innovation, helped the company maintain its dominant position, and harmed consumers as a result.
Google spokesman Jay Stoll said that the company changed its contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, prior to the Commission’s decision, and the case only concerned a narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers’ websites.
Google Wins Challenge, but the Battle is Not Over
The EU can appeal the General Court’s decision, but it would have to be on points of law to the bloc’s top court, the Court of Justice. Google was handed a €4.34 billion fine from the Commission for abusing its dominance by pre-installing Google Search into Android devices in 2018 but has since escalated an appeal to the European Court of Justice.
An investigation into whether Google favours its own ad technology services is ongoing, and a preliminary finding from last year said that a mandatory divestment of part of its ad tech business would be the only way to address competition concerns. Another EU probe into the way Google’s compliance with the new Digital Markets Act is also ongoing. Regulators say that the tech giant is promoting its own services above third parties’ in search results and therefore is gatekeeping.
Google’s legal battles are not just confined to the EU. The U.S. Department of Justice and state Attorneys General initiated an antitrust investigation in 2020, alleging Google has unlawfully used the distribution agreements to thwart competition.