News agency Reuters reported that the General Court upheld most of the Commission’s findings but it overturned the fine, citing errors in the assessment of the duration of the restrictive contract clauses
“The court (…) upheld most of the commission’s assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair,” the judges said.
Google expressed satisfaction with the ruling, stating that it had already made changes to its contracts in 2016 before the Commission’s decision.
“This case is about a very narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers’ websites. We made changes to our contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, even before the Commission’s decision. We are pleased that the court has recognised errors in the original decision and annulled the fine,” the spokesperson told CNBC.
The Commission, meanwhile, said that it has taken the note of the judgement and will reflect on the possible next steps. It is to be noted that the Commission can appeal this decision which will send the case up to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s top court.
The AdSense fine is one of a trio of fines that have cost Google a total of 8.25 billion euros and was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010.
Earlier this month, the ECJ upheld a 2.4 billion euro ($2.65 billion) fine imposed on Google for abusing its dominant position by favouring its own shopping comparison service.
Plaid, the US multi-billion-dollar-valued open banking firm, has restructured its senior management team and appointed a new European boss. Mike Saunders, who
Capmont Technology – a venture capital firm investing in B2B technology startups across Europe and the US – has announced the launch of a €100 million fu
Apple Inc. has been warned by the European Union to open up its highly guarded iPhone and iPad operating systems to rival technologies, or eventually risk sig
Inbolt, a provider of real-time robot guidance solutions, has secured a €15 million Series A round. The round is led by Exor Ventures, the early-stage invest