Google Asks EU Court to Permanently Annul €1.49 Billion Antitrust Fine
On 15 July, Google's Alphabet division called on the European Union's top court to reject the appeal by EU antitrust regulators against a lower court's decision. This decision had annulled a €1.49 billion (USD 1.7 billion) fine. The company stated that the regulators' arguments are flawed, Reuters reported.
The dispute reached the Court of Justice of the European Union after regulators challenged the 2024 General Court of the EU ruling, which had annulled the fine imposed on Google in 2019. The lower court had highlighted errors in the case assessment conducted by the European Commission.
The European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority, had claimed that Google used restrictive clauses in contracts with publishers. These clauses allegedly prevented competitors from placing search ads on their websites, thereby strengthening Google's dominant position in the online search advertising market.
The Commission noted that this practice lasted from 2006 to 2016. Google's AdSense platform, which provides search advertising, removed the disputed clauses from agreements with publishers in 2016.
Google's lawyer, Josh Holmes, rejected the European Commission's arguments.
"The Commission's new arguments are flawed. The General Court's reasoning is clear and comprehensive," he told a panel of five judges.
According to Holmes, the Commission ignored evidence showing that Google's competitors had significant opportunities to compete.
In turn, the European Commission's lawyer, Anthony Douse, criticised the lower court's decision, stating that it imposes an unprecedented burden on regulators to analyse issues already settled by case law.
"This conclusion turns case law upside down," he said, adding that the lower court's logic effectively means that exclusive clauses in contracts will be considered lawful by default.
On 12 November, the court advisor is expected to publish an advisory, non-binding opinion, with the final decision anticipated in the coming months.
The AdSense fine was one of four EU antitrust fines that, over nearly two decades of disputes with the European Commission, cost Google a total of €9.5 billion. The General Court's decision to annul this fine was a rare legal setback for the EU antitrust regulator.
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