A European court has overturned the €1.5 billion (£1.3 bn) antitrust fine imposed on Google by the European Commission over the tech firm’s AdSense product.

The Commission imposed the penalty in 2019, following accusations that Google had abused its market dominance by inserting exclusivity clauses in contracts with third-party websites. Those clauses, the Commission argued, stopped publishers from placing search adverts from competitors on their results pages, forcing them to reserve the most profitable spaces for Google’s adverts.

The fine, which amounted to 1.29% of Google’s turnover in 2018, was reversed by the European Union’s General Court, Europe’s second highest court, saying that the Commission had not taken into account all the relevant circumstances.

In this latest ruling the court found that the Commission’s did not establish that Google’s contracts deterred innovation, harmed consumers, or helped the company maintain and strengthen its dominant position in online search advertising. 

In 2022, lawyers for Google called the fine ‘quasi-criminal’ at earlier court hearings, and claimed the Commission’s ruling against the tech giant was riddled with ‘material errors’.

“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 company said in an email to Reuters.

The fine was one of three antitrust actions set to cost Google a total of €8.25 billion (£6.7 bn). Last week, the company lost its appeal against a €2.42 billion (£2.03 bn) fine for using a price comparison shopping service in order to maintain an advantage over smaller European rivals.

Legal scrutiny of big tech firms has intensified in Europe over recent years, with both Google and Apple facing multi-billion euro fines, and sweeping laws being introduced under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) which impact everything from social media moderation to tech business practices.

These rules are now seeing other international companies brought to court under antitrust laws. Most recently, Qualcomm, the wireless technology and software developer, was slapped with a €242 million (£203.5 million) fine for so called ‘predatory pricing’ tactics, with the court claiming the company had knowingly sold its chipsets below cost to frustrate market rivals. 

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According to the European Commission, one of its major goals with the new regulations is to establish a level playing field among technology firms operating in Europe in order to “foster innovation, growth, and competitiveness” both within the European Single Market and further afield.

Although the reversal of the European ruling will come as a relief to Google, it’s not the end of the problem for the firm. Earlier this month the UK’s competition watchdog, the CMA, released its provisional decision on Google’s adtech behaviours, finding them to be using anti-competitive practices which it believes could be harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers.