Alphabet's subsidiary, Google, successfully contested a $1.66 billion antitrust penalty on Wednesday, originally imposed five years ago for obstructing competitors in the online search advertising sector, just a week after facing a significant defeat in a separate case.

In its 2019 ruling, the European Commission determined that Google had misused its market dominance by restricting websites from utilizing advertising brokers other than its own AdSense platform. The alleged illegal activities occurred between 2006 and 2016.

The General Court, located in Luxembourg, largely concurred with the European Union's competition authority's findings but ultimately annulled the imposed fine.

"The court [...] supported most of the commission's conclusions but overturned the decision to impose a fine of nearly 1.5 billion euros [$1.66 billion] on Google, primarily because it did not adequately consider all relevant factors in evaluating the duration of the unfair contractual clauses," the judges stated.

The AdSense penalty, part of a series of fines totaling approximately $9 billion against Google, was initiated by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010.

Google has indicated that it revised the targeted contracts in 2016 prior to the Commission's ruling.

Last week, the company faced a setback in its final appeal against a $2.6 billion fine imposed for leveraging its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair edge over smaller competitors in Europe.