Google AdTech case highlights growing politicisation of competition enforcement, but Commission holds firm in issuing landmark fine

On 5 September 2025 the European Commission made headlines around the world by announcing the imposition of a €2.95bn fine against Google for abusing its dominance in the advertising technology (AdTech) sector. 

The decision is noteworthy – not just because of the scale of the fine, but also due to the circumstances in which it was issued.

A delayed decision

Only a few days before the decision was announced, global news outlets reported that the Commission was holding off issuing the fine whilst the EU awaited the outcome of finely-balanced trade negotiations with the US. Google had reportedly been told the decision would be issued on 1 September.

The Commission’s competition spokesperson declined to comment on the apparent delay, but reports suggest EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič made a last-minute intervention. Commission antitrust decisions require formal approval by the EU’s College of Commissioners, and while an unqualified majority at the College is sufficient, the norm is to adopt the decision by consensus, with the College following the proposal of the competition Commissioner. Here, however, it appears likely that questions or objections were raised at the point at which the AdTech decision was tabled for adoption.

In any event, the decision was delayed only very briefly. In a statement accompanying the infringement decision, Executive Vice-President Ribera stated that it “reaffirms the EU's unequivocal commitment to competition enforcement” and that the EU “will continue to apply our rules firmly and fairly, without fear or favour, in relation to all companies operating in Europe”. Interestingly, the statement also referred to the recent upholding of a US Department of Justice (DoJ) complaint against Google, which closely mirrors the theories of harm set out in the Commission’s decision. Quite likely this was aimed at heading off anticipated criticism of the decision as unfairly targeting or discriminating against US tech companies (which in any event duly followed from the US presidency).

Google’s conduct, and the Commission’s response to it

The Commission’s press release explains that Google was found to be dominant in the markets for: 

1. publisher ad servers, via its product Doubleclick For Publishers (DFP), which allows publishers to manage the advertising space on their websites and apps; and
2. programmatic ad buying tools, via its products Google Ads and DV360, which allow advertisers (and their agents) to conduct and manage digital advertising campaigns.

In between these sell-side and buy-side tools sit advertising exchanges – intermediaries that connect buyers and sellers of advertising space through automated auction processes. The Commission found that Google abused its dominant positions in both of the above markets by favouring its own intermediary, “AdX”. For example, DFP was found to have favoured AdX by revealing to it the value of the best bid placed by a third-party competitor, and Google Ads favoured AdX by mainly placing bids on AdX instead of on competing exchanges. The Commission concluded that this conduct intentionally gave AdX a competitive advantage and may have foreclosed competing advertising exchanges; reinforcing AdX’s role in the AdTech supply chain and enabling Google to charge higher commissions.

In fining Google close to €3bn (the second highest fine ever imposed by the Commission – after its 2018 Google Android fine), the Commission took into account Google’s status as a recidivist, increasing the amount of the penalty by a reported 60%1. 

In addition to the fine, the Commission ordered Google to end its self-preferencing practices and, within 60 days, propose measures addressing the issues it identified. Should the Commission not be satisfied with those proposals, it will “proceed to impose an appropriate remedy”; it has already indicated to Google its preliminary view that “only the divestment by Google of part of its services” can address the underlying issues. If the threat of a divestment order were to materialise, it would mark a new milestone in EU antitrust enforcement. While companies have in the past offered structural remedies during settlement negotiations to avert fines and infringement findings, a divestment imposed directly by the Commission – following a contested process – would be a new development (a structural remedy was also imposed in ARA, under a cooperation procedure in which the addressee of the infringement decision itself suggested the remedy). Such a move would also stand in contrast to the recent ruling of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, which declined to order Google to divest Chrome and Android as a remedy for an established violation of the US equivalent of Article 102 TFEU.

Is competition enforcement becoming more politicised?

The apparent attempted political intervention in the AdTech decision (not only from within the Commission – the DoJ also reportedly sought to persuade the Commission to delay its decision, to avoid it being affected by the ongoing trade tensions) follows a longer delay in the issuing of fines against Apple and Meta for breaches of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – again against a backdrop of geopolitical and trade tensions vis-à-vis the US.

Moreover, the recently-launched review of the Commission’s merger assessment guidelines incorporates a number of topics that would have come as a surprise to anyone expecting a purely technical exercise in ensuring the guidelines reflect the latest legal precedents and economic thinking. Responding to calls from senior Commission executives and the EU Parliament, these include how merger policy can: help EU companies scale-up and compete better at the global level; enhance the resilience of critical EU industries; and reflect the EU’s security and defence interests.

This begs the question of whether policymakers are now increasingly looking to influence the outcome of competition investigations – politicising what should be a technocratic process. However, while authorities undoubtedly want to present their decisions as always being grounded in legal and economic theory, the politicisation of competition law is not a new phenomenon.

For a start, one can validly make the argument that competition law is inherently political. The creation of modern antitrust law in the US in the late 19th century is widely recognised as being motivated by a desire to control the political power of new, continent-spanning corporations, as well as their economic power. In Europe, the German system of competition law – which heavily influenced the EU regime – arose out of the post-war “ordoliberal” school of thought. This identified a need for the state to take an active role in fostering a free market characterised by open and fair competition, and was concerned about the threat that large and powerful corporations could pose to democracy.

Beyond that (somewhat academic) point, one can readily point to numerous instances in recent decades of national governments seeking to intervene in decision-making, particularly in the field of merger control:

• GE/Honeywell (2001) is one of the most notable instances of transatlantic divergence in merger assessment. The two engineering giants agreed to merge their operations through an all-share deal. The DoJ decided not to challenge the transaction, on the basis that their capabilities were largely complementary. But the Commission was concerned that the merged entity would be dominant on several markets for aerospace products and might leverage that dominance into other markets through bundling practices. Commitments offered by the parties failed to address the Commission’s concerns, and so it prohibited the transaction. This was despite the Commission and DoJ having cooperated closely on the transaction, and US President George Bush having expressed concerns over the Commission having issued a Statement of Objections to the parties.
   
• Siemens/Alstom (2019) is perhaps the go-to example of Member State governments attempting to sway a Commission merger decision. The French and German administrations championed the merger of Siemens’ rail business with Alstom and sought to place pressure on the Commission to approve it, through public statements and meetings with Commission representatives. They hailed the transaction as necessary to create a European railway champion capable of rivalling Chinese state-backed manufacturer CRRC. The Commission, however, identified horizontal concerns in the markets for signalling systems and high-speed rolling stock, concluding that competitive pressure from those remaining in the market (which excluded east Asian manufacturers) would be insufficient to constrain the merged entity. It therefore issued another high-profile prohibition decision – one which prompted the publication of a Franco-German “manifesto” calling for a more ambitious European industrial strategy. Arguably, the legacy of this manifesto can be seen not only in the present – overtly political – review of the Commission’s merger guidelines, but also in the passing and implementation of the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation.
   
• More recently, in Lufthansa/ITA (2024) a more favourable outcome (for the merging parties) was reached, with the Commission conditionally approving the German flag carrier’s acquisition of its Italian counterpart. The deal had the strong support of the Italian government (which, at the time, owned ITA, following its predecessor’s bankruptcy), although after initially criticising the Commission’s stance on the transaction, it decided not to actively intervene (at least not openly). The approval prompted criticism from European Consumer Organisation BEUC, which wrote to the Commission expressing concerns about the “intense political pressure” being placed on the Commission to clear the transaction despite it raising “clear competition issues”2.

This trend is also observable outside of merger control investigations. 

State Aid cases are unavoidably political, given they involve the Commission intervening against Member State governments’ decisions. But the Apple case – in which the Commission ruled that Apple’s tax arrangements with the Irish government amounted to illegal State aid – was particularly so. The Commission’s 2016 decision to order Apple to pay Ireland €14.3bn in back-taxes and interest prompted US president Donald Trump to brand Competition Commissioner Vestager a “tax lady” who “hates the United States”. The US sought permission to intervene in the subsequent appeal before the General Court, but its application was rejected as it was deemed to have insufficient interest in the outcome. That attempted intervention arguably proved unnecessary, as the General Court upheld the appeal. The Commission’s decision was ultimately reinstated by the Court of Justice last year, but with similar cases against Amazon and Starbucks (as well as Fiat) having ultimately proved unsuccessful, the Commission’s appetite for pursuing such tax settlements appears to have been dimmed.

Political interference (or attempts at it) in antitrust decision-making is generally less apparent – perhaps because Western governments and institutions (usually) operate under a broad consensus that anticompetitive conduct is harmful to all and should be prosecuted without hesitation. The Commission’s abuse of dominance investigation against Gazprom, however, was a rare example of an antitrust case with overtly geo-strategic elements. In that case, the Commission investigated concerns that Gazprom had abused its dominance in eight national markets for the upstream supply of natural gas in Central and Eastern Europe, by artificially partitioning them and charging discriminatory and/or excessive prices. Poland and the Baltic states had pressed particularly hard for action against Gazprom and objected when the Commission opted to settle the case through commitments rather than proceeding to an infringement decision. The Polish national oil and gas company PGNiG went so far as to appeal the commitments decision, with the support of the Polish and Lithuanian governments, but its efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. For its part, the Commission downplayed the geo-political aspects of the case, stating that “as always, this case is not about the flag of the company”.

Conclusion

Competition law does not operate in a vacuum, and it cannot be fully insulated from political imperatives. The Google AdTech case underscores how geopolitical currents and national interests can press on enforcement, just as they have in past matters. The challenges currently faced by Nvidia provide another illustration of antitrust enforcement intersecting with geopolitical dynamics, as the company appears to be simultaneously subject to prior Chinese merger commitments to maintain supply into China, and US export control restrictions limiting its ability to do so.

Nevertheless, outcomes in the above cases suggest that, in the EU at least, decision-making remains anchored in legal and economic analysis. In Google AdTech, the Commission coupled an almost €3bn fine with the prospect of structural or far‑reaching behavioural remedies; in the other cases cited, it resisted overt political pressure when the evidence demanded it do so. 

Overall, the message from these cases is clear: while politics often swirls around major competition investigations, the Commission’s objective approach to decision‑making continues to hold firm. Indeed, a distinguishing feature of antitrust enforcement – on both sides of the Atlantic – is that final decisions and their underlying reasoning are made public and can be openly debated. This openness may of course drive and intensify political scrutiny and intervention, but it also encourages regulators to remain consistent and technically sound in their reasoning. By contrast, in the field of FDI and other security-driven regimes, decision-making is typically not transparent, with little to no disclosure of process or rationale – leaving outcomes more vulnerable to political considerations, and subject to less public debate and oversight.

1 In aggregate, Google has now been fined over €11bn by the Commission for Article 102 infringements (albeit with €1.7bn of fines overturned on appeal).

2 The Commission’s commitments decision has since also been appealed by Luxembourg national carrier Luxair.