SC defers Google anti-competitive case hearing to January

The Supreme Court deferred on Monday the hearing in Google LLC’s anti-competitive policies case to the last week of January.

The hearing was supposed to begin from Tuesday. However, it has now been pushed to January due to pending constitution-bench hearings before the top court.

Given the immense significance this case carries, the top court went on to say that it will be ensured that no other case hearings clash with it.

Last year, the CCI found Google guilty of abusing its dominance in the Android mobile device ecosystem and online search market. The regulator had imposed a penalty of Rs 1,337 crore on the global tech giant and also directed it to cease and desist from indulging in anti-competitive behaviour.

In March, the appellate tribunal upheld the competition regulator’s order with certain modifications. The NCLAT had held that out of the 10 directions that were issued by the CCI, four were unsustainable. However, the tribunal agreed with CCI on six aspects.

They were as follows:

• Smartphone manufacturers will have the right to decide which of Google’s proprietary apps should be pre-installed on their smart devices and their placement.
• Pre-installation of Google Search services, the Chrome browser, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, or any other application cannot be a precondition for licencing the Play Store.
• No payments or incentives shall be given to make and develop Android-forks-based smart devices without having to include Google’s proprietary apps.
• Manufacturers should be able to make and develop Android-forks-based smart devices without having to include Google’s proprietary apps.
• No payments or deals to make sure smartphone makers don’t sell smart devices that are based on Android forks
• Allow users to choose which default search engine they want to use when the device is first set up.

After a fractured win at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, both the CCI and Google approached the Supreme Court against the order of the tribunal. Bloomberg