Google’s abuse of dominant position: CCI moves SC against NCLAT order

The NCLAT's judgment from March 2023, partially upheld CCI's order against tech giant Google holding that it had abused its dominant position.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has filed an appeal in Supreme Court against the judgment of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in a case pertaining to Google's abuse of its dominant position and imposition of Rs 1,338 crore penalty on the US tech giant by the CCI.

According to the Supreme Court's website, the appeal was filed on June 5, the case is yet to be numbered as the registry has raised some technical defects in the plea.

The NCLAT's judgment from March 2023, partially upheld CCI's order against tech giant Google holding that it had abused its dominant position.

However, the appellate tribunal held the following aspects in Google's favour.

1. Google was fair in sending warnings (Sideloading) to users when they download applications directly from the website or from an unknown source.
2. Google need not share its proprietary Application Program Interface (API) with third parties.
3. Google was right in not permitting third-party application stores on its play stores to avoid malware
4. Google can restrict the uninstallation of Google Suite apps on Android phones

It is speculated that the anti-trust watchdog has filed an appeal against one of the above findings of the CCI.

Case background

In 2018, Android users approached the CCI 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 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 NCLAT upheld CCI's order on penalty in March 2023.