Google wins challenge against $1.66 billion EU antitrust fine

Google won its challenge on Wednesday (Sep, 18) against a European antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising.

It was in 2019 when the European Commission said Google had abused its dominance to prevent businesses from using brokers other than its own AdSense platform to provide search adverts.

The practices described as being illegal were said to have happened between 2006 to 2016. It was then that the search engine was hit with the 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine.

While the fine has today been annulled, the General Court still agreed with a lot of the former assessment of the case.

According to Reuters, the judges said: “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.”

Although Google can find some relief in this fine being lifted, they have been engaged in yet another antitrust battle. It was last Tuesday (Sep, 10) when the technology giant lost in the fight against a 2.42 billion euro ($2.7 billion) fine levied by EU antitrust regulators seven years ago.

In 2017, the European Commission fined the company for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller rivals based in Europe.

A lower tribunal endorsed the EU competition enforcer’s decision in 2021 which caused Google to appeal.

Reuters reported the judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union as having said: “In particular, the conduct of undertakings in a dominant position that has the effect of hindering competition on the merits and is thus likely to cause harm to individual undertakings and consumers is prohibited.”

The corporation has become no stranger to fines, as it has racked up 8.25 billion euros in EU antitrust fees in the last decade.

Featured Image: Via Ideogram

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