Google wins EU legal battle over €1.5 billion fine
After years of back-and-forth, a European Union court has overturned a huge fine imposed on Google over the way it sells ads. It was one of three major penalties the EU has imposed on the tech giant in recent years.
Specifically, the General Court of the European Union on September 18 ruled in favor of Google, stating that the company does not need to pay a fine of 1.49 billion Euros (equivalent to 1.67 billion USD).
The case began in 2019, when the European Commission said the US tech giant had violated competition rules by giving priority to its shopping links in search results.
Google argued that it had adjusted its operations to comply with EU rules years earlier.
“The General Court completely annuls the Commission’s decision,” the judges said in a statement.
The tech company expressed satisfaction: “We are pleased that the court recognized the errors in the original decision and overturned the fine,” Google said in a statement. “We will review the entire decision carefully.”
The European Commission, which acts as the bloc's antitrust watchdog, said Google had inserted exclusivity clauses into its contracts with websites that restricted the use of advertising from its rivals.
However, Google argues that it changed those terms to comply with EU law in 2016.
The EU General Court said the European Commission had "erred" in its assessment of the contracts.
The fine is one of three the EU has imposed on Google in the past decade. Last week, the company lost an appeal of another antitrust fine, in which the EU successfully argued that Google's preference for its own shopping links over third-party sites stifled competition.
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