Google has succeeded in overturning a $1.7 billion antitrust penalty handed down by the European Union again in March 2019.
The €1.49 billion fantastic, which Google appealed, was initially issued after the European Fee discovered the tech big’s search adverts brokering enterprise had violated competitors guidelines between 2006 and 2016 to cement a dominant place.
On Wednesday, the EU’s Common Courtroom upheld the vast majority of EU’s findings, however annulled the sooner choice in its entirety after discovering that the Fee had did not think about all of the related circumstances when assessing the period of the contract clauses it deemed abusive.
The EU can enchantment the choice to the bloc’s highest courtroom, the Courtroom of Justice (CJEU), on some extent of legislation. Nevertheless it has but to substantiate whether or not it’ll achieve this. Fee spokeswoman Lea Zuber advised TheTrendyType that it “takes notice” of the Common Courtroom judgment and mentioned it’ll research it “rigorously” and “mirror on doable subsequent steps.”
The brand new choice comes after the bloc netted a few main wins on the CJEU, one among which touched one other Google choice (Google Shopping). The Fee additionally gained the upper courtroom’s backing for a high-risk State Support case in opposition to Eire’s tax breaks for Apple, confirming the tech big should pay some $15B in again taxes. So the EU could also be feeling emboldened to attempt its luck at difficult this newest courtroom setback, particularly because the Common Courtroom upheld most of its findings within the AdSense case.
Google has been contacted for a response to the Common Courtroom’s ruling.
The Fee hasn’t stood nonetheless because the AdSense choice, because it has an ongoing investigation into Google’s adtech stack, instigated back in mid 2021, that’s trying extra broadly at its function within the adtech provide chain.
It stays to be seen whether or not that antitrust probe will result in enforcement, however the Fee’s competitors chief beforehand warned that if its considerations are confirmed, the only viable remedy may be to break Google’s ad empire up.
EU’s Qualcomm penalty largely upheld
In a separate ruling additionally issued on Wednesday, the Common Courtroom largely upheld a July 2019 Commission antitrust penalty on Qualcomm that had fined the cell chipmaker €242 million (~$271M) for predatory pricing of baseband chips.
Qualcomm petitioned the Common Courtroom to annul the fantastic completely or considerably cut back it. The Courtroom largely upheld the Fee’s penalty, solely barely revising the fantastic right down to €238.7M.
The chipmaker had raised 15 pleas in legislation difficult the EU’s penalty. The Common Courtroom rejected all of them besides one in regards to the charge calculation, which it accepted partially, discovering that the Fee “departed, with out justification, from the methodology laid down in its 2006 pointers [for calculating fees].”
The ruling is more likely to be an enormous aid for the Fee, which had an earlier Qualcomm enforcement quashed by the Common Courtroom in 2022.
The authorized avenues for Qualcomm to problem the Courtroom’s newest ruling are restricted to elevating some extent of legislation with the CJEU.
