Google, owned by Alphabet, has overturned a £1.26bn antitrust fine from 2019, which was imposed for restricting competition in online search advertising.

This follows a recent loss where the company was forced to pay a £2bn (€2.4bn) fine for unfairly boosting its price comparison service over smaller competitors in Europe.

The 2019 fine, initiated by a 2010 Microsoft complaint, focused on Google’s AdSense advertising platform. 

While most of the initial ruling was upheld, the EU’s General Court nullified the penalty, citing a failure to fully consider the duration of Google’s advertising contracts.

The judgement read: “In those conditions, the General Court holds that the Commission has also not demonstrated that the clauses in question had, first, possibly deterred innovation, next, helped Google to maintain and strengthen its dominant position on the national markets for online search advertising at issue and, last, that they had possibly harmed consumers.”

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally concluded that Google is “abusing its dominant position” in the ad tech market.

In its statement of objections, the CMA claimed Google used its control over publisher and buying tools to favour its own ad tech services, limiting competition in the UK’s open-display advertising market.

The CMA voiced concerns that Google is “actively” exploiting its dominance to hinder competitors and prevent fair competition.