On Wednesday, the European Court of Justice lifted the 1.5 billion euro fine imposed on Google.

Google has won an appeal against a €1.5 billion fine imposed back in 2019. The tech giant appealed at the time, arguing that the fine was the result of unfair competition that Google had been engaging in for years with its AdSense platform. It was found that the Commission had not taken certain circumstances into account when determining whether Google’s clauses actually led to unfair competition. The fine has therefore now been lifted. The Commission can still appeal.

Fine cancelled

In 2019, Google was already fined 1.5 billion euros for unfair competition with its AdSense platform. According to EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, Google abused its dominant position in the search advertising market by including restrictive clauses in contracts with AdSense customers. This would prevent competitors from also placing their search ads on the websites.

Google quickly countered and appealed the billion-euro fine. Now, five years later, the General Court of the European Union has ruled that the fine should be annulled. The court found that the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, had failed to “take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses it found to be abusive.” The Commission can still appeal.

This is not the first fine imposed on the technology giant. Last week, Google received a fine of 2.4 billion euros for “Google Shopping” for allegedly unfair competition.