Google v. EC (Ad Tech): €2.95B Regulatory

After a €2.95B EU fine for rigging its ad-tech stack in favor of its own exchange, Google is fighting annulment proceedings at the General Court while the Commission market-tests its proposed fixes against the threat of forced divestiture, and publisher damages claims are already following on in Amsterdam.

LATEST DEVELOPMENT · AUG 3, 2026

A Paris court (Tribunal des Activités Économiques) ordered Google to pay roughly €126M in follow-on ad-tech damages to Le Figaro, Les Echos-Le Parisien, Prisma Media and Dailymotion in a ruling issued around June 29-30, 2026, adding to the earlier M6 and L’Équipe awards. Ad-tech company Teads sued Google and Alphabet in the Southern District of New York on August 3, 2026, alleging rival exchanges lost about 6.88 trillion impressions to AdX between 2017 and 2023, a US follow-on to the E.D. Va. liability ruling that joins the European wave led by the Amsterdam publisher suit and the pending General Court annulment action.

BACKGROUND

On 5 September 2025, the European Commission fined Google €2.95B in Case AT.40670, finding that since 2014 it abused dominant positions in publisher ad servers and programmatic ad-buying tools in breach of Article 102 TFEU: its ad server DFP gave its own exchange AdX advance information on rivals’ best bids, and its buying tools Google Ads and DV360 steered demand to AdX. The decision ordered Google to end the self-preferencing and to propose remedies within 60 days, with the Commission stating its preliminary view that only a structural remedy, divesting part of the ad-tech stack, would resolve Google’s inherent conflicts of interest. The case is the mirror image of the parallel US litigation in the Eastern District of Virginia, where a federal court found Google illegally monopolized the same markets in April 2025 but, on September 2, 2026, rejected the government’s bid to force divestiture of AdX and ordered behavioral remedies instead.

Google proposed behavioural remedies on 14 November 2025, including publisher-set differential price floors and greater interoperability of its tools, which the Commission is now market-testing with hundreds of stakeholders while keeping the divestiture option open. Google’s annulment action against the decision and the fine, Case T-794/25, was published in the Official Journal on 12 January 2026, and the Commission released the provisional non-confidential decision that month. Private enforcement has begun: in June 2026 more than 20 European news publishers, funded by Prague-based LitFin, filed a €640M follow-on damages claim against Google in Amsterdam.

TIMELINE

AUG 3, 2026FILING

Ad-tech firm Teads sues Google in the Southern District of New York over lost ad impressions

Teads Holding Co. filed a damages complaint against Google and Alphabet in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging rival exchanges lost about 6.88 trillion impressions between 2017 and 2023 because Google tied Google Ads demand to AdX, and seeking treble damages.

Teads sues Google, citing 6.88 trillion impressions lost to rival exchanges
JUL 22, 2026OTHER

More French follow-on adtech damages claims against Google expected

Global Competition Review reported an uptick in French damages claims targeting Google’s ad-tech conduct, with additional filings being prepared beyond the M6 and L’Équipe judgments.

Google set to face more adtech damages claims in France
JUN 29, 2026JUDGMENT

Paris court orders Google to pay ~€126M to Le Figaro, Les Echos-Le Parisien, Prisma Media and Dailymotion

The Paris Tribunal des Activités Économiques ordered Google to pay a total of approximately €126M in follow-on antitrust damages to four French media companies over ad-tech self-preferencing conduct, building on the earlier French competition authority decision and the EU Commission’s €2.95B fine.

Google ordered to pay €126m in damages to Dailymotion, French press publishers Google to pay €126 million to French media groups over ad tech violations Three French Publishers Secure Damages from Google in Anticompetitive Adtech Case
JUN 2026FILING

Publishers file €640M follow-on claim in Amsterdam

More than 20 publishers from eight EU countries, funded by LitFin, sued Google for damages building directly on the Commission’s infringement finding.

European publishers sue Google for 640 million euros
MAR 26, 2026JUDGMENT

Paris court orders Google to pay €16.19M to L’Équipe in follow-on damages

A second Paris civil tribunal awarded sports publisher L’Équipe €16.19M in follow-on damages against Google for ad-tech self-preferencing, the second such French judgment following the Commission’s decision.

The Paris Civil Courts order a Big Tech company to pay €22.7M to a broadcaster and €16.2M to a sports publisher in follow-on damages
MAR 10, 2026JUDGMENT

Paris court orders Google to pay €22.69M to M6 in follow-on damages

A Paris civil tribunal awarded broadcaster M6 €22.69M in follow-on damages against Google for exclusionary self-preferencing in the online advertising technology market, building on the Commission’s AT.40670 findings.

The Paris Civil Courts order a Big Tech company to pay €22.7M to a broadcaster and €16.2M to a sports publisher in follow-on damages
JAN 14, 2026PROCEDURAL

Commission publishes redacted €2.95B ad-tech infringement decision

The European Commission released the public, redacted version of its September 2025 decision fining Google €2.95B for ad-tech self-preferencing, as structural remedies continued to be considered.

European Commission releases public Google AdTech decision as structural remedies loom
JAN 12, 2026APPEAL

Annulment action published, Case T-794/25

Google and Alphabet’s action before the EU General Court seeks annulment of the decision and elimination or reduction of the €2.95B fine.
NOV 14, 2025OTHER

Google proposes behavioural remedies to avoid a breakup

Google offered publisher-set price floors and interoperability changes. The Commission began market-testing the proposals with market participants.
SEP 5, 2025JUDGMENT

Commission fines Google €2.95B for ad-tech self-preferencing

The decision found Google favored AdX through DFP and its buying tools since 2014, ordered the conduct to end and gave Google 60 days to propose remedies.

EC press release IP/25/1992 Loyens & Loeff briefing on the decision
JUN 14, 2023PROCEDURAL

Statement of Objections signals divestiture

The Commission took the preliminary view that only mandatory divestment of part of Google’s ad-tech business would remedy its conflicts of interest.
JUN 22, 2021FILING

Commission opens formal investigation into Google’s ad-tech practices

EXPERIMENTAL AI FORECAST

HOW IT IS MADE →

Predicted outcome: Respondent win
Model-assigned probability: about 58%
Timeframe: General Court judgment 2029-2030
Model confidence: medium

The most likely end point is that the General Court upholds the Commission’s Article 102 self-preferencing finding and leaves the €2.95 billion fine intact or only lightly trimmed, roughly a 58 percent call, with judgment realistically landing in 2029-2030 given typical three-to-four year GC timelines from the January 2026 publication of T-794/25. The strongest driver is doctrinal and evidentiary convergence: the CJEU’s 2024 Google Shopping ruling entrenched the self-preferencing theory, and an independent US court in the Eastern District of Virginia found the same DFP/AdX/Google Ads conduct unlawful in April 2025, which makes a wholesale factual unpicking of the sort that sank the AdSense decision in 2024 much harder here. On the remedy track, expect the Commission to close with an accepted behavioural package built on publisher-set price floors, interoperability and compliance monitoring rather than a forced AdX divestiture, a posture reinforced by the E.D. Va. court’s 2 September 2026 refusal to order structural relief, though Brussels will keep divestiture in reserve as leverage during 2027. The leading alternative is a split result in which liability is affirmed but the fine is cut, most plausibly to the €2.0-2.6 billion range on gravity or duration grounds, as happened in Android where the GC shaved the penalty while sustaining the abuse. Full annulment remains a live but secondary risk, in the 12-18 percent band, and would most likely turn on market definition or the Commission’s handling of the ad server dominance finding rather than on the conflict-of-interest theory itself. Whatever the GC does, the private wave is already monetising the decision independently: roughly €165 million in French follow-on awards to M6, L’Équipe, Le Figaro, Les Echos-Le Parisien, Prisma Media and Dailymotion, the €640 million LitFin-backed Amsterdam publisher claim, and the Teads treble-damages action in SDNY, with aggregate European exposure plausibly running into the low billions before appeals. A negotiated commitments-style settlement of the fine itself is not available under the EU framework, so this ends by judgment, and either side will likely take a further appeal to the Court of Justice.

Google Shopping precedent entrenches self-preferencing theory at CJEU level · Parallel US liability finding on identical conduct corroborates Commission evidence · GC rarely annuls fully; Android-style fine trim is main downside · US refusal to order breakup reduces likelihood Brussels forces divestiture · Follow-on damages already accruing, independent of annulment outcome

Generated automatically by claude-opus-5 on Sep 13, 2026 from this case’s record on this site, and published without editorial review. The probability is the model’s judgment, not a measured frequency; there is no established validation record for these forecasts. Not legal or investment advice. How the forecasts are made →