BRUSSELS - Europe's second-top court on Wednesday backed Alphabet unit Google's challenge against a 1.49 billion euros ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising.

"The court (...) upheld most of the commission's assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take in account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair," the Luxembourg-based General Court said.

The European Commission in 2019 handed down the fine to the world's most popular internet search engine, one of a trio of fines that have cost Google a total of 8.25 billion euros.

The case is T-334/19 Google and Alphabet v Commission (Google AdSense for Search).

  - Reuters