The European Court of Justice ruling that Apple did indeed owe Ireland billions in back taxes may have been the main event so far in the EU’s battle with big tech, but regulators on this side of the Atlantic have not had everything their own way.
On Wednesday Google won an appeal against a €1.5 billion competition fine from the European Commission, in what is billed as a significant victory for the company and a notable loss for the commission. The European Union’s General Court annulled the fine levied on Google despite it accepting “most of the commission’s assessments” that it had capitalised on its dominant position to block rival online advertisers.
According to Margrethe Vestager – the key player in the saga as the EU’s competition chief – Google had set anticompetitive restrictions on third-party websites for a decade until 2016. Indeed, she had argued that the fine was a result of what she called the “serious and sustained nature” of the offence.
Yet the EU’s General Court found the penalty did not “take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair”.
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But how big a deal is this decision really? No doubt it is a blow to the commission, and to Vestager as she exits the competition regulation role. It is unlikely to be the end of the matter, however. The commission can still appeal to the European Court of Justice, something it will almost certainly do given the amount of money at stake.
Indeed, it was the General Court that initially struck down the Apple tax case back in 2020, only for the European Court of Justice to reinstate it in a final decision issued just last week.
Like the Apple case, this one clearly has plenty of road to run yet. For the moment, the General Court’s move is notable but, assuming the commission appeals, the issue will remain very much alive until the European Court of Justice makes its final ruling in a few years’ time.
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