EU court cancels Commission’s 1.5bn euro fine against Google
The General Court of the European Union has cancelled in full a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros imposed on Google by the European Commission. According to the judges, the Commission committed “errors” in its assessment of the case.
The fine of 1.49 billion euros was imposed on Google in 2019 for abusing its dominant market position in the online advertising market with its ad broker AdSense.
According to the Commission, the company had left a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with websites that prevented competitors from placing their search ads on those websites.
In its ruling, the court largely upheld the Commission’s findings, but found the competition watchdog had committed errors in assessing the case. According to the court, the Commission did not take all relevant circumstances into account when determining whether Google’s clauses were unfair. The Commission can appeal.
The ruling is a new stage in a series of legal battles between the Commission and Google. Last week, the European Court of Justice upheld a 2.4 billion euro fine on the grounds that Google had unlawfully favoured its product comparator Google Shopping over its competitors.
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