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Google's €1.49 billion antitrust fine case reopens: EU court adviser questions ruling that annulled the penalty

Source: IT之家 Published: Business & Funding 中文
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A legal adviser at the EU's top court on Thursday questioned a lower court's ruling that annulled a €1.49 billion antitrust fine imposed on Google by the European Commission seven years ago over anti-competitive practices in its online advertising business. The Commission appealed to the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg after the General Court rejected the penalty decision in 2024. Advocate General Kokott found that the General Court set too high a bar in reviewing the duration of the conduct and did not adequately link its conclusions to the criteria for determining market dominance; the Court typically considers but is not bound by the adviser's opinion and is expected to rule next year.

Translation(model translation, not the source's own text)

Google’s €1.49 billion antitrust fine case sees new developments: EU court adviser says ruling annulling fine is problematic

IT之家 reported on November 12: A Google antitrust case in the EU has seen new developments. On Thursday local time, a legal adviser to the EU’s highest court questioned a lower court’s earlier ruling that annulled Google’s €1.49 billion (IT之家 note: at the current exchange rate, approximately RMB 11.065 billion) antitrust fine. The fine was originally issued by the European Commission 7 years ago and concerned anti-competitive conduct in Google’s online advertising business.

In 2024, the EU General Court rejected the European Commission’s relevant penalty decision against Google. The European Commission subsequently appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg (the highest judicial body in the EU court system).

The European Commission is the EU body responsible for competition regulation. In 2019, it found that Google used restrictive clauses in contracts with website publishers to prevent competitors from placing search ads on those websites, thereby further consolidating Google’s dominant position in the search advertising market.

The European Commission pointed out that these restrictive practices lasted from 2006 to 2016. Google’s AdSense platform provides search advertising services. In 2016, Google had already removed the contested clauses from agreements with publishers.

The opinion was issued by Advocate General Kokott of the Court of Justice of the European Union. She believed that the EU General Court, when reviewing the criterion concerning the duration of the relevant conduct, imposed excessively high review requirements and did not sufficiently link its final conclusion to the relevant criteria for determining whether an undertaking has market dominance.

The Court of Justice of the European Union usually takes into account the opinions of the Advocate General but does not necessarily adopt them in full. The court is expected to issue a final ruling next year.

The AdSense antitrust fine is only one of several competition law penalties Google faces in the EU. Over the past nearly 20 years, the EU has adopted six antitrust penalty decisions, imposing a cumulative €10.38 billion (at the current exchange rate, approximately RMB 77.084 billion) in fines on Google.

The case number is C-826/24 P, and the case name is European Commission v Google and Alphabet (Google AdSense).

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