06:33 AM EDT, 09/18/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The EU general court said Wednesday it annulled a fine imposed by the bloc's Commission on Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) unit Google ( GOOG ) of almost 1.5 billion euros ($1.67 billion), pointing out errors in the Commission's assessment.

Google ( GOOG ) had faced complaints over three clauses in the services agreement of advertising service AdSense for Search for indicating that services competing with AdSense could be foreclosed. The Commission in 2016 found that Google ( GOOG ) committed an infringement from the three clauses and imposed the fine.

While the court said it upheld most of the Commission's findings, it noted that the Commission failed to demonstrate that the clauses could in fact have a foreclosure effect, or if they could have possibly deterred innovation and harmed consumers. It was also not established whether the clauses had helped Google ( GOOG ) abuse its dominant position in the market.

"We are pleased that the court has recognized errors in the original decision and annulled the fine," a Google ( GOOG ) spokesperson told MT Newswires. "This case is about a very narrow subset of text-only search ads placed on a limited number of publishers' websites. We made changes to our contracts in 2016 to remove the relevant provisions, even before the Commission's decision."

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