NCLAT to hear Google's appeal against CCI's Rs 936 crore penalty from November 28

Google CCI

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on September 25 said that it will start hearing from November 28 tech giant Google's appeal against the order by Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposing a penalty of Rs 936 crore for abusing its dominant position in the playstore ecosystem.

The NCLAT further said contesting start-ups should file responses to Google’s appeal in four weeks.

On  January 11, the tribunal refused to grant immediate relief to Google against CCI’s order and posted the case for the final hearing in April 2023. While Google filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the NCLAT order, it ultimately withdrew the case.

The CCI on October 25, 2022, penalised the tech giant for restricting app developers from using any third-party billing or payment processing services to purchase apps for in-app billing on Google Play Store. Google Play Store is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google, from where mobile apps are downloaded.

The CCI held that making access to Play Store, for app developers, dependent on mandatory usage of Google Play Billing System (GPBS) for paid apps and in-app purchases constitutes an imposition of an unfair condition on app developers. The CCI held that Google was following discriminatory practices by not using GPBS for its own application – YouTube.

The anti-trust regulator further said that mandatory imposition of GPBS disturbs innovation incentives and the ability of both the payment processors as well as app developers. It was held that imposing GPBS also results in the denial of market access for payment aggregators as well as app developers. Finally, the CCI concluded that the practices followed by Google resulted in leveraging its dominance in the market for licensable mobile OS and app stores for Android OS, to protect its position.