Google asked the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to confirm a ruling that scrapped a $1.7 billion antitrust fine against the company, Reuters reported. The Reuters headline read: "Google urges EU top court to back ruling scrapping $1.7 billion antitrust fine."

The request targets a European Commission penalty tied to Google's AdSense for Search advertising business. The General Court, the EU's first-instance competition tribunal, annulled the fine after Google appealed. Google now wants the bloc's highest court to validate that annulment on the Commission's appeal.

What does Google want from the CJEU?

Google is asking the Luxembourg-based top court to back the General Court's reasoning. In broad terms, the company argues that the Commission did not prove an infringement of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the EU's core abuse-of-dominance provision.

The CJEU's appellate jurisdiction covers points of law only. The top court will examine whether the General Court applied EU competition law correctly, without retrying the underlying facts.

What was the underlying case?

The European Commission fined Google approximately €1.49 billion — about $1.7 billion at the time — in March 2019. The decision targeted Google's conduct as a supplier of online search advertisements. The Commission concluded that Google:

• Imposed exclusivity clauses on third-party publisher websites
• Required publishers to obtain Google's written consent before displaying rival search ads
• Reserved minimum ad space on publisher pages for Google's own search products

Regulators said the practices ran from 2006 through 2017 and amounted to an abuse of dominance in the online search advertising market.

What did the General Court decide?

The General Court annulled the fine in its judgment of September 18, 2024 in Case T-334/19. The court held that the Commission had failed to discharge its burden of proof on key elements of the alleged infringement. Without a legally sufficient showing of competitive harm, the €1.49 billion penalty could not stand.

The annulment returned the disputed funds to Google and ended the case at first appeal. The Commission's decision to escalate the dispute to the CJEU keeps the penalty fight alive before the EU's top court.

Why does the case matter for practitioners?

Competition lawyers across the bloc treat the dispute as a stress test of the General Court's annulment standard in digital-market cases. A CJEU judgment confirming the annulment would:

• Tighten the Commission's evidentiary burden under Article 102 in future cases against platform operators
• Limit the use of contractual restrictions as standalone proof of anti-competitive effect
• Reinforce the defence playbook for technology clients facing EU competition probes

A reversal by the CJEU, by contrast, would reinstate the fine and signal that the General Court set the proof bar too high.

How does the case fit Google's wider EU record?

The AdSense penalty was one of three headline fines the Commission imposed on Google between 2017 and 2019. The other two targeted Google's Android mobile operating system and its comparison-shopping service. Both attracted separate General Court challenges that produced partial wins for the company.

A Google victory at the CJEU would close a major chapter in the Commission's campaign against the search giant. A Commission victory would reopen multibillion-euro liability for the company and reshape the Commission's approach to Article 102 enforcement in digital markets.

What happens next?

The CJEU will refer the appeal to a chamber, appoint an advocate general to deliver a non-binding opinion, schedule written and oral submissions, and issue a final written judgment. The ruling will bind all EU member states, with no further appeal available within the EU judicial system. The Commission will rely on the General Court record; Google has the right to file a response and appear at any oral hearing.