Google Wins EU Antitrust Appeal, Qualcomm Loses Bid to Overturn Fine

Alphabet’s Google secured a legal victory on Wednesday, successfully appealing a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Union. Meanwhile, U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm failed in its attempt to overturn a separate penalty, highlighting mixed results for outgoing EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.

The ruling by the Luxembourg-based General Court annulled the fine against Google, imposed by the European Commission in 2019 for abusing its market dominance. The Commission had accused Google of preventing websites from using rival ad brokers to its AdSense platform, which provided search advertisements. These practices occurred between 2006 and 2016.

While the court largely agreed with the Commission’s findings, it ruled that the fine was unjustified, stating that the Commission failed to fully assess the situation. “The Commission has also not demonstrated that the clauses in question had possibly deterred innovation, helped Google maintain its dominant position, or harmed consumers,” the judges said.

Google responded positively to the ruling, emphasizing that the issue concerned a narrow subset of text-only search ads. “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 recognized errors in the original decision and annulled the fine,” a Google spokesperson said.

The European Commission, which has the option to appeal the ruling to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), stated that it would review the judgment and consider its next steps.

The annulled fine was part of a series of EU penalties that have cost Google a total of €8.25 billion. Last week, Google lost a separate appeal against a €2.42 billion fine for promoting its own price comparison shopping service over smaller European rivals.

In contrast, Qualcomm only achieved a minor reduction in its €242 million antitrust fine, with the court trimming the penalty to €238.7 million. The fine was imposed for selling chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, in an effort to eliminate competition from British firm Icera, now part of Nvidia Corp. Qualcomm’s arguments were largely rejected by the court.

Qualcomm has the option to appeal the decision to the CJEU but has not yet commented on the ruling. The European Commission acknowledged the court’s decision in the Qualcomm case and stated that it would assess the ruling.

These rulings highlight the challenges Vestager’s team has faced in upholding major fines against Big Tech in EU courts.