India’s Supreme Court refuses to overturn Google’s unfair competition fine

India’s Supreme Court has rejected Google’s request to strike down a local antitrust regulator ruling in October that the US company was illegally forcing Indian smartphone makers to install the Android operating system. Reuters.

As a reminder, on October 20, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google for $162 million for unfair use of its dominant position in the Android device market. As a result of the review, authorities concluded that Google used its dominant position in the Android smartphone market to promote its own applications such as an Internet search engine, the Chrome web browser and YouTube video hosting. All of them were required to be pre-installed on Android devices in accordance with the agreements between the American company and smartphone manufacturers. In addition, Google entered into agreements with device manufacturers on the inadmissibility of installing operating systems-forks of Android, as well as agreements on the division of revenue.

At the same time, the regulator ordered the American corporation to change the conditions for promoting Android in the Indian market, and all agreements between Google and smartphone manufacturers were declared illegal.

The Supreme Court of India has decided not to intervene on the merits of the case, leaving the right to decide on Google’s appeal of the CCI verdict to a lower court. At the same time, the Supreme Court set a deadline for the consideration of the appeal – until March 31.

Google did not comment on the Supreme Court’s decision.

Kirill Sarkhanyants