Google wins legal bid to overturn 1.5 billion euro antitrust fine in EU digital ad case

LONDON (AP) — Google won a court challenge on Wednesday against a 1.49 billion euro European Union antitrust fine imposed five years ago that targeted its online advertising business.

The European Union’s General Court said it was throwing out the 2019 penalty imposed by the European Commission, which is the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer.

“The General Court annuls the Commission’s decision in its entirety,” it said in a press release.

The commission’s ruling applied to a narrow portion of Google’s ad business: ads that the U.S. tech giant sold next to Google search results on third-party websites.

Regulators had found that Google inserted exclusivity clauses in its contracts that barred these websites from running similarly placed ads sold by Google’s rivals. The commission, the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said when it issued the penalty that Google’s behavior resulted in advertisers and website owners having less choice and likely facing higher prices that would be passed on to consumers.

The Associated Press