Key Points
- Google overturned a 1.49 billion euro EU antitrust fine related to its AdSense platform.
- The court found the European Commission’s case lacked evidence of harm to innovation, competition, and consumers.
- Qualcomm failed to repeal its 242 million euro fine fully but secured a minor reduction.
- Both Google and Qualcomm may appeal to the EU Court of Justice on points of law.
Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, secured a legal victory on Wednesday by overturning a 1.49 billion euro ($1.7 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Union. Meanwhile, U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm failed to repeal a similar EU antitrust penalty. These rulings highlight the mixed success of outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager in her efforts to regulate Big Tech.
The European Commission fined Google in 2019, claiming the company had abused its market dominance by preventing websites from using ad brokers other than its AdSense platform for displaying search ads. The Commission argued that this practice occurred between 2006 and 2016 and was anti-competitive. However, the Luxembourg-based General Court disagreed with some aspects of the Commission’s case, annulling the fine. The court ruled that the Commission had not demonstrated that Google’s actions had deterred innovation, strengthened its dominant position, or harmed consumers.
Google welcomed the court’s decision, stating that the case focused on a narrow subset of text-only search ads shown on a limited number of publishers’ websites. The company also noted that it had already made changes to its contracts in 2016 to address the concerns raised by the Commission. “We are pleased that the court has recognized errors in the original decision and annulled the fine,” Google said in a statement.
The European Commission is reviewing the judgment and will consider its next steps, which could include an appeal to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU).
The original AdSense fine was part of a trio of penalties that have cost Google 8.25 billion euros. The AdSense case began after Microsoft filed a complaint in 2010. This ruling follows another defeat for Google last week when it lost its final appeal against a 2.42 billion euro fine for unfairly favoring its price comparison shopping service over smaller European competitors.
In a separate ruling, Qualcomm managed only a slight reduction in its EU antitrust fine, which was lowered from 242 million euros to 238.7 million euros. The fine was imposed in 2019 after the Commission found that Qualcomm had engaged in predatory pricing from 2009 to 2011 to stifle competition from British software maker Icera, now part of Nvidia. Qualcomm said it disagreed with the judgment but would continue to comply with European competition law. Both companies have the option to appeal to the CJEU.
