Google's antitrust suit: SC admits cross appeals

Time of India

2 days ago

The Supreme Court on Friday admitted a batch of cross-appeals by Google Inc., its related companies, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), and the Alliance Digital India Foundation against a National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's (NCLAT) March order that partially upheld the antitrust regulator's findings that Google abused its dominant position in its Play Store policy.A bench comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Atul S Chandurkar said it will hear the case in November.Google Inc and its related companies—Alphabet Inc, Google Ireland, Google India, Google India Digital Services—and others have challenged the March 28 judgment by the NCLAT, which largely affirmed the CCI's core findings that Google abused its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem through its Play Store policies and engaged in unfair promotion of Google Pay, thereby violating Section 4(2)(e) of the Competition Act.The tech companies have also challenged the NCLAT's May 1 order that corrected its "inadvertent error" in its original judgment, reinstating CCI's two key data-related directives, which require the tech giant to disclose its data policies and refrain from leveraging billing data for competitive advantage.The CCI's October 2020 order had penalised Google for allegedly exploiting its dominant position in markets such as online search and the Android app store. The competition watchdog had imposed a penalty of Rs 936 crore against the tech giant and its companies for engaging in anti-competitive behaviour by mandating the use of its Google Play Billing System for app purchases, while exempting its own applications like YouTube from similar commission structures. The antitrust body had also directed Google to cease these practices, including allowing third-party billing and ensuring data transparency.While the appellate tribunal affirmed the CCI's s order that Google imposed unfair and discriminatory conditions on app developers through mandatory use of Google Play billing system for paid apps and in-app purchases, it set aside the competition watchdog's findings regarding denial of market access and restriction of innovation on the grounds that Google's billing services constituted less than 1% of total UPI transactions and that there was insufficient evidence of market foreclosure or hindrance to technical development.The original penalty of Rs 936.44 crore was also reduced by the NCLAT to Rs 216.69 crore by limiting it to Play Store-specific revenues rather than Google's global turnover. The appellate tribunal also rejected some findings of the antitrust body's order, which the CCI has challenged now in the SC.Indian startups, including People Interactive India (operator of Shaadi. com), Mebigo Labs (owner of Kuku FM), the Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation, and the Indian Digital Media Industry Foundation, had moved the CCI seeking a probe into Google's functioning.