Google wins legal bid to overturn €1.5bn antitrust fine over EU digital ads

LONDON — Google won a court case on Wednesday against a €1.49 billion European Union antitrust fine imposed five years ago over the company’s online advertising activities.

The European Union’s general court ruled that it was dismissing the fine imposed in 2019 by the European Commission, the main body responsible for enforcing antitrust rules in the 27-nation bloc.

“The Court of First Instance annuls the Commission’s decision in its entirety,” the press release reads.

The commission’s ruling concerned a narrow part of Google’s advertising business: ads that the American tech giant sold alongside Google search results on third-party websites.

Regulators said Google had inserted exclusivity clauses into its contracts that prohibited those sites from running similarly placed ads sold by Google’s rivals. The Commission, the bloc’s top antitrust watchdog, said in imposing the fine that Google’s conduct left advertisers and site owners with fewer choices and likely to face higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.