EU Justice Court Overturns €1.5 Billion Fine Against Google

Google gets away with it. The European Court of Justice on Wednesday, September 18, annulled a fine of 1.5 billion euros imposed by Brussels in 2019 against the American giant for abuse of a dominant position in online advertising. This decision is annulled “in its entirety”because the European executive has “made mistakes” in its assessment, according to the EU Court. The European Commission, which imposed the fine, will have the possibility to appeal this decision.

The case concerns the advertising network Google AdSense. In March 2019, the Commission had decided to fine the technology group €1.5 billion for having imposed restrictive clauses in contracts with websites. The aim, according to Brussels, was to prevent Google AdSense competitors from placing their own ads there. The American firm had decided to take legal action and won its case on Wednesday.

In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based court, “confirms most of the Commission’s assessments”but cancels the fine “on the grounds in particular that it failed to take into consideration all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses which it had described as abusive”.

This first instance judgment comes just eight days after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) definitively confirmed another fine against Google, of 2.4 billion euros, for anti-competitive practices on the price comparison market, after seven years of legal battle.

In total, the Californian giant has been fined more than 8 billion euros for various breaches of competition law. In addition to its price comparison site and its advertising network, Google has been found to be in breach in Europe regarding its Android operating system for mobile phones. It was fined a record 4.34 billion euros in July 2018.