2 weeks Ago By Niall Kitson
19 September 2024 A ruling by The European General Court -the second highest court in the EU – has resulted in a major victory for Google: the reversal of a €1.49 billion fine. The fine stemmed from allegations that Google had abused its market dominance between 2006 and 2016 by obstructing rival online search advertisers.
The court ruled that the European Commission had made errors in its assessment during the initial investigation, leading to the annulment of the fine. Although the Commission acknowledged the ruling and said it would consider its options, including possibly appealing to the EU’s highest court, Google expressed satisfaction with the outcome. This victory is a rare success for the tech giant, which previously faced several high fines for antitrust violations in Europe between 2017 and 2019.
Google’s dominance of the online advertising market is currently under scrutiny on several fronts. In addition to the European case, the UK Competition & Markets Authority has preliminarily found that Google used anticompetitive practices to maintain its market control. In addition, the US government has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet, Google’s parent company, on suspicion of an illegal monopoly in the online advertising sector.
The case revolved around Google’s AdSense product, which facilitates the delivery of ads to websites and effectively acts as an intermediary for these ads. The European Commission found that Google abused its market power to prevent websites from using alternative ad brokers in addition to AdSense. It also cited “restrictive” clauses in Google’s contracts that reinforced Google’s dominance, leading to the initial fine of €1.
49 billion. However, the EU General Court ultimately ruled that the Commission had not comprehensively considered all relevant factors related to contract terms and market definition, thus there was no clear case of abuse of dominance. Business AM Read More: EU European Commission European Union Google law.
