Tech major Google has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, challenging the order of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's (NCLAT) order upholding Rs 1,338 crore penalty for anti-trust violations.
"Today, we filed an appeal in the Supreme Court regarding the NCLAT’s decision in the Android case. The NCLAT correctly found that harm for anti-competitive behaviour needs to be proven, but did not apply this requirement to several of the CCI’s directions that it upheld. We look forward to presenting our case before the Supreme Court and demonstrating how Android has benefitted Indian users, developers, and OEMs, and powered India’s digital transformation" a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
In March 2023, the NCLAT had partially upheld Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) abuse of Android dominance order against Google. The tribunal had upheld the penalty of Rs 1,338 crore imposed by CCI.
The anti-trust appellate tribunal held that the CCI's order does not suffer from any confirmation bias. Furthermore, the NCLAT held that Google asking the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to pre-install the entire Google Suite of 11 applications amounts to imposition of unfair conditions.
The NCLAT held that Google indeed reduces the incentive of the OEMs to develop their own version of Android (Android forks) by imposing conditions through its Anti Fragmentation Agreement (AFA) bars OEMs from developing and distributing Android forks.
The NCLAT, however, set aside four key directions issued to Google by the CCI:
- Google was fair in sending warnings (Sideloading) to users when they download applications directly from the website or from an unknown source.
- Google need not share its proprietary Application Program Interface (API) with third parties.
- Google was right in not permitting third-party application stores on its play stores to avoid malware
- Google can restrict uninstallation of Google suite apps on Android phones
It is to be noted that the CCI has also challenged the NCLAT's order at the Supreme Court.
Background:
In 2018, Android users moved the competition watchdog alleging that Google was abusing its dominant position in the mobile operating system-related market in contravention of the provisions of the Competition Act. It was alleged that the US tech giant's demand that device manufacturers must preinstall the entire GMS or Google Mobile Services suite under its Mobile Application Distribution Agreement or MADA was an unfair condition.
The CCI subsequently ordered an investigation by the director general (DG) of its investigative arm into this matter.
The CCI had in 2019 expressed a prima facie opinion that mandatory pre-installation of the entire GMS suite under MADA amounted to the imposition of unfair conditions on device manufacturers.
On October 20, 2022, the CCI, based on the DG’s report and other documents filed by both sides, concluded that Google was abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem. It asked Google to cease and desist from its practices, and pay a penalty of Rs 1,338 crore.
The fair practice regulator held that Google could neither force OEMs of smart devices to preinstall its apps, nor restrict users from uninstalling such apps. It also asked the US major not to offer any incentives to OEMs to comply with its conditions.
Google moved the NCLAT in January but failed to get an immediate relief. The company then approached the Supreme Court against the tribunal's decision. The apex court, in turn, refused to intervene in the case and asked NCLAT to look into it.
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