Google wins fight over €1.5bn EU fine for ads abuse

There were two court successes for antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and her bid to rein in Silicon Valley. Last week she won victories against Google’s attempt to avoid a €2.4bn antitrust penalty for favouring its own product results on search and Apple's bid to skirt a €13bn Irish tax bill.

Google won a court fight with the European Union over a €1.5bn fine for thwarting competition for online ads, partly atoning for last week’s crushing defeat in a separate judgment for abusing its monopoly powers.

Judges at the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg backed the Alphabet unit’s challenge to a fine doled out in 2019, saying regulators were mostly correct in their findings but made key mistakes in their probe linked to the duration of the alleged wrongdoing.