Google has won a legal bid to overturn a €1.5 billion antitrust fine over EU digital advertising

LONDON (AP) – Google won a court challenge Wednesday against a 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) European Union fine imposed five years ago targeting its online advertising business.

The EU's General Court said it was overturning the 2019 penalty imposed by the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's top antitrust enforcer.

“The General Court overruled the Commission's decision in its entirety,” the court said in a press release.

The commission's ruling applies to a narrow segment of Google's advertising business: ads that the US tech giant sold next to Google search results on third-party websites.

Regulators accused Google of inserting exclusivity clauses into its contracts that prevented these websites from running similar ads sold by Google's rivals. The commission said when it issued the fine that Google's behavior had resulted in advertisers and website owners having less choice and likely facing higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.

But the General Court said the commission “erred” when it evaluated those clauses. The commission failed to show that Google's agreements inhibited innovation, harmed consumers or helped the company maintain and strengthen its dominant position in the national online search advertising market, it said.

The judgment can be appealed, but only on grounds of law, to the High Court of the Block.

The commission said in a brief statement that it would “study the ruling carefully and consider possible next steps.”

Google said it changed its contracts in 2016 to remove the provisions in question before the commission imposed its decision.

Google said in a statement, “We are pleased that the court recognized the error in the original decision and vacated the penalty. “We will closely review the entire decision.”

The company's legal victory comes a week after it lost a final challenge to a separate EU antitrust case over its shopping comparison service that also involved hefty fines.

These were three antitrust fines totaling around 8 billion euros that the Commission had slapped Google with in the previous decade. The fines ushered in an era of intense scrutiny for big tech companies.

Since then, Google has faced increasing pressure on both sides of the Atlantic for its digital advertising business. It is currently battling the Justice Department in a US federal court over allegations that its dominance of the technology that controls billions in internet display ad sales constitutes an illegal monopoly.

British competition regulators this month accused the company of abusing its dominance in the country's digital advertising market and prioritizing its own services.

EU antitrust enforcers, conducting their own investigation, suggested last year that the only way to satisfy competition concerns about the company's digital advertising business was to break up the company.