On 12 November 2026, Advocate General Juliane Kokott advised the Court of Justice to set aside the General Court's 2024 judgment that annulled the Commission's €1.49 billion AdSense for Search fine against Google, and to send the case back for a fresh ruling. In her view, the lower court imposed "excessive requirements" on how the Commission must examine the duration of the contract clauses, according to The Next Web's report. Her opinion is not binding, and the judges have not ruled. It nonetheless sets up a test of how much evidence a competition authority needs before it fines a dominant firm for exclusivity-style clauses.
The case for the Commission
The strongest argument for the Commission is easy to state. AdSense for Search lets websites with built-in search boxes show Google search ads in return for a revenue share. The Commission's March 2019 decision, summarised in its press release, found that Google's template contracts restricted rival ad services. Per TNW, the clauses were an exclusivity clause, a placement clause reserving the most visible space for Google's ads, and a prior-authorisation clause for changes. The Commission found the practices ran from 2006 to 2016, ending when Google dropped or amended the clauses after proceedings opened.
If you are a regulator, requiring a contract-by-contract duration analysis for every publisher looks like an invitation to endless litigation. A dominant firm can write thousands of agreements with different renewal dates and let each one be argued separately. Kokott's reported position is that a cumulative assessment of the contracts, which is what the Commission did, was enough.
What the General Court actually decided
The General Court did not reject the Commission's whole theory. The Court's press release of 18 September 2024 announced the annulment of the decision in Case T-334/19. TNW reports that the court accepted much of the Commission's analysis and annulled on one ground: the Commission had not sufficiently assessed how long the publisher contracts lasted. A Stibbe analysis describes the judgment the same way, as an annulment on the duration of the clauses rather than a ruling that the conduct was lawful.
That distinction matters. This was not a finding that exclusivity in ad syndication is harmless. It was a finding that the Commission's evidence on one element, how long rivals were actually foreclosed, was too thin to support a fine of this size.
Why the duration question deserves rigour
The pro-innovation reading of the General Court's approach is not frivolous. Exclusivity is not illegal in itself. A short exclusive contract can finance a publisher's investment and give an ad platform the certainty to compete on price. What matters is whether the clauses foreclosed rivals for long enough to hurt them. Duration is the fact that separates a harmful lock-in from an ordinary commercial arrangement.
A fine also needs a time period. The Commission's finding of conduct from 2006 to 2016 sets how much of Google's revenue is exposed to the penalty. If the infringement period is loosely evidenced, the fine rests on loosely evidenced facts.
There is a counterpoint. By 2016, Google had already removed the clauses, so the conduct had long since ended. The Court of Justice is reviewing the quality of the Commission's reasoning, not whether the market is still harmed. Kokott's view, if followed, would not revive an ongoing restriction. It would restore a sanction for past conduct, with the General Court asked to re-examine the decision under a less demanding standard.
What this means for enforcement
The stakes go beyond Google. Per TNW, the AdSense fine is one of six EU antitrust penalties against Google totalling €10.38 billion over nearly two decades, and the only one a court has annulled. If the Court of Justice follows Kokott, the Commission regains an important precedent: that it can assess a set of standard contracts cumulatively, without proving each agreement's duration separately.
Supporters of strong enforcement will welcome that for its administrative efficiency. A fair concern is that a lighter evidentiary burden makes the Commission's case selection less disciplined. The Commission has strong incentives to bring cases, and courts are one of the few checks on how carefully it builds them. Procedural rigour is not a loophole for large firms. It is what keeps competition law tied to evidence of harm rather than to the size of the defendant.
A proportionate approach would hold two things together. The Commission should not have to catalogue every contract, but it should still show, with data, that the clauses covered enough of the market for long enough to matter. A remand to the General Court is arguably the right outcome under either reading, because it lets the lower court apply a corrected standard to the existing record rather than leaving the question open or settling it on appeal.
What to watch
TNW reports that the ruling is expected next year. Judges often follow Advocate General opinions, but not always. Three things will signal where EU abuse-of-dominance law is heading:
- Whether the Court accepts that cumulative assessment of standard contracts is sufficient on duration.
- Whether it says anything about how closely the General Court should review the Commission's economic reasoning.
- Whether, after a remand, the fine is upheld, reduced or re-adopted on a more detailed record.
For technology firms, the practical lesson is not to ignore exclusivity clauses because one fine was annulled. For regulators, it is that the strongest enforcement record comes from evidence that is easy to defend on appeal.