NCLAT to pronounce verdict tomorrow on Google appeal against ₹1,337 crore CCI penalty for abuse of dominance in Android market

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCALT) will pronounce its judgment tomorrow on Google's appeal against the Competition Commission of India (CCI) order imposing a penalty ₹1,337 crore on the tech giant for allegedly misusing its dominant position in the Android ecosystem. .The judgment will be pronounced by a bench of NCLAT Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Dr Alok Srivastava, Member (Technical) at 2 PM. .NCLAT had reserved its verdict on the appeal on March 20 after hearing the parties for over a month. .The Appellate Tribunal had earlier refused to grant any interim relief to Google. The matter then travelled to the Supreme Court, which also denied relief to the company. However, the apex court requested the NCLAT to decide the matter by March 31..In an order passed in October last year, the CCI had levied the penalty on Google, directed it to cease and desist from participating in anti-competitive practices and also to modify its conduct within a defined timeline.The Commission examined various practices of Google in relation to licensing of the Android mobile operating system and several of its mobile applications such as the Play Store, Google Search, Google Chrome, YouTube etc.Based on its assessment, the Commission found Google to be dominant in all the relevant markets.The competition watchdog had gone through Google's multiple agreements governing the rights and obligations of smart device OEMs. The underlying objective of Google in imposing various restrictions through the agreements was to protect and strengthen its dominant position in general search services, and thus, its revenues via search advertisements, the Commission concluded.It added that the markets should be allowed to compete on merits and the onus was on the dominant player to show that its conduct does not impinge this competition on merits."By virtue of the agreements discussed above, Google ensured that users continue to use its search services on mobile devices which facilitated un-interrupted growth of advertisement revenue for Google," it had held..CCI imposes ₹1,337 crore penalty on Google for anti-competitive practices in Android mobile devices market