Google wins trial against EU antitrust fine of €1.49 billion, Qualcomm loses

Google, a unit of Alphabet, on Wednesday won a lawsuit against a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) antitrust fine from the European Union, while Qualcomm failed to overturn the fine, UNN reports citing Reuters.

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In its 2019 ruling, the European Commission said that Google had abused its dominant position to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform to provide search advertising. The practices, which it said were illegal, took place from 2006 to 2016.

The General Court of the EU, located in Luxembourg, largely agreed with the EU competition authority's assessment of the case, but overturned the fine, stating that the European Commission had not taken into account all the relevant circumstances.

"The Commission has also failed to demonstrate that the provisions at issue are likely to have stifled innovation, helped Google to maintain and strengthen its dominant position in the national markets for the online search advertising at issue, and, finally, that they may have caused harm to consumers," the judges said.

Google stated that the case concerned a narrow subset of textual search ads placed on a limited number of publisher websites.

"We amended our contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions before the Commission's decision. We are pleased that the court recognized the errors in the initial decision and canceled the fine," the company said in an email.

The European Commission, which can appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), said it would study the decision and consider possible further steps.

The AdSense fine, one of three fines that cost Google a total of €8.25 billion, was imposed after a complaint from Microsoft in 2010.

Last week, the company lost its latest battle against a €2.42 billion fine imposed for using its price comparison service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European competitors.

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In the Qualcomm case, the American chipmaker managed to convince the General Court to reduce its EU antitrust fine from EUR 242 million to EUR 238.7 million.

The judges rejected all of its arguments. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019, saying that Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, using a practice known as predatory pricing to thwart British phone software maker Icera, now part of Nvidia.

The European Commission stated that it had also taken note of the ruling.

Qualcomm, which may appeal to the CJEU, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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