Google has won an important legal battle against the European Commission after the EU court overturned a competition fine of 1.5 billion euros against the technology company. This marks a significant victory for the tech giant at a time when it is under increasing regulatory scrutiny from Brussels.

The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg confirmed most of the Commission's allegations on Wednesday that Google had abused its dominant position to block rival online advertising providers. However, it annulled the fine, stating that the Commission had not taken into account all relevant circumstances when assessing the duration of the contested contractual clauses.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager imposed the fine in 2019, arguing that Google had implemented anti-competitive restrictions on third-party websites over a ten-year period from 2006 to 2016. The amount of the fine, according to her, reflected the "serious and prolonged nature" of the violation.

Google expressed satisfaction with the ruling. A spokesperson for the company stated: "This case pertains to a very limited portion of text ads that were placed on a few publishers' websites. We had already changed our contracts in 2016, before the Commission's decision was made. We are pleased that the court recognized errors in the original decision and overturned the fine.

The European Commission, which is expected to appeal the ruling, stated that it "takes note" of the judgment and will carefully consider how to proceed further.

The case is one of three that the EU Commission has brought to court against Google in recent years, with total imposed fines of approximately 8.25 billion euros. However, critics argue that competition policy measures are too slow and that the company has long dominated the online advertising market.

The Commission's defeat in this case follows a victory in another proceeding, in which the European Court of Justice confirmed that Google had abused its market dominance to favor its own shopping service. In that case, a fine of 2.4 billion euros against Google was upheld.

Additionally, another case against Google is ongoing, focusing on its dominance in the ad-tech market. The EU recently suggested that breaking up Google might be the only solution to address competition concerns. However, whether this threat will be carried out remains to be seen.