Google has successfully appealed the cancellation of a 1.5 billion euro antitrust fine imposed by the European Commission five years ago. Judges of the European General Court The decision was canceled Because the Commission had made mistakes in evaluating the company’s advertising contracts.
In particular, the Commission did not demonstrate that Google’s contracts with publishers potentially stifled innovation, helped the company maintain its dominant position, and harmed consumers as a result. Despite upholding most of the rules, EU findingsThis factor meant that it could not be concluded that Google had infringed competition rules.
Timeline of events
In 2019, the Commission fined Google for imposing restrictive covenants on third-party websites using its AdSense platform, preventing them from displaying ads of their competitors next to Google search results and stifling competition between 2006 and 2016. This was initially triggered by a complaint from Microsoft.
Google appealed the fine, claiming the commission was guilty of “material errors of analysis” at a 2022 hearing. BloombergIt was the third major antitrust penalty against the Alphabet-owned company by the EU in the past decade, following earlier fines related to Android and Google Shopping.
Google spokesman Jay Stoll said today that the company had changed its contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, prior to the Commission’s decision, and that the case concerned only a narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers’ websites.
“We are pleased that the court has acknowledged the errors in the original judgment and cancelled the fine,” he said. Reuters,
The EU can appeal the General Court’s decision, but it would have to appeal to the bloc’s top court, the Court of Justice, on points of law. It is possible to do so because the General Court agreed with many of its findings and just last week it won two other legal battles:
Google was fined 4.34 billion euros by the Commission in 2018 for abusing its dominance by pre-installing Google Search on Android devices, but has since appealed to the European Court of Justice.
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Google’s regulatory battles in the EU, UK and US are far from over
This is not the last the search giant will hear from European regulators, though, as antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who led many of the legal disputes, will step down at the end of this year.
The investigation is ongoing into whether Google gives preference to its own ad technology services, but a preliminary investigation last year said Google gives preference to its own ad technology services. “Compulsory Disinvestment” Selling a portion of its ad tech business would be the only way to address competition concerns.
Another EU investigation is also underway into the way Google complies with the new Digital Markets Act. Regulators say the tech giant is promoting its own services above third-party services in search results and is therefore “gatekeeping”. In March, Google temporarily removed some search widgets such as Google Flights to allow more access to individual businesses in response to the DMA coming into force.
Google’s legal battles are not just limited to the EU. Earlier this month, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority provisionally ruled that the tech giant’s dominance in the ad tech market is harmful to competitors. Google is also trying to appeal a U.K. court decision in June that allowed a similar antitrust lawsuit filed by a group of online publishers to proceed to trial.
The US Department of Justice and state attorneys general launched an antitrust investigation in 2020The suit alleges that Google “illegally used distribution agreements to thwart competition.” That investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, in August, a federal judge ruled that the tech company has a monopoly on general search services and text ads and has broken antitrust law.
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