BRUSSELS, Sept 18: An EU court on Wednesday scrapped a 1.49-billion euro ($1.65 billion) fine imposed by Brussels against Google over abuse of dominance in online advertising.
"The General Court annuls the (European) Commission's decision in its entirety," the Luxembourg-based court said in a statement, adding that the "institution committed errors in its assessment".
Brussels "failed to take into consideration all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contract clauses that the commission had deemed abusive", the court said.
The commission, the EU's influential competition regulator, said it "takes note" and would "carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps" -- which could include an appeal.
A Google spokesperson said the company welcomed the ruling, noting it had "made changes" to its ad services in 2016, before the EU decision.
"We are pleased that the court has recognised errors in the original decision and annulled the fine," a Google spokesperson added.
The ruling is especially welcome for Google after the EU's highest court last week upheld a 2017 fine worth 2.42 billion euros, imposed for abusing its dominance by favouring its own comparison shopping service.
As part of a major push to target big tech abuses, the EU slapped Google with fines worth a total of 8.2 billion euros between 2017 and 2019 over antitrust violations.
The 1.49-billion euro fine is the third of those penalties, focused on Google's AdSense service.
But the long-running legal battles between Google and the EU do not end there.
Google is also challenging a 4.3-billion-euro penalty Brussels levied on it for putting restrictions on Android smartphones to boost its internet search business.
The 2018 fine remains the EU's largest-ever antitrust penalty.
The General Court in 2022 slightly reduced the fine to 4.1 billion euros, but mainly supported the commission's argument that Google had imposed illegal restrictions.
The legal saga continues in that case after Google appealed the latest decision before the higher European Court of Justice.
The EU has since armed itself with a more powerful legal weapon known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to rein in tech giants including Google.
Rather than regulators discovering egregious antitrust violations after probes lasting many years, the DMA gives businesses a list of what they can and cannot do online. —AFP
