Google on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against a National Company Law Appellate Tribunal order refusing to put an interim stay on a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore against the tech giant for unfair and anti-competitive practices in relation to Android phones, reported Bar and Bench.
In October, the Competition Commission of India had imposed the penalty on Google for “abusing its dominant position” in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem. Android is an operating system that runs applications and programs on smartphones. It was acquired by Google in 2005.
The commission had said that it found that pre-installation of the entire Google Mobile Suite – a collection of Google applications – was mandatory in Android smartphones and users had no option to uninstall it.
On January 4, the tribunal had directed the technology company to deposit 10% of the penalty amount before the next hearing of the plea on February 13.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Google, mentioned the matter before the the Supreme Court, saying that the tribunal order would force the company to change the way it markets its Android platform, reported Bar and Bench.
A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha agreed to hear the case on January 16.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the tribunal upheld another penalty of Rs 936.44 crore imposed by the Competition Commission of India on the tech giant for abusing its dominant position on online platforms to promote its own payment apps on the Google Play Store, reported PTI.
The tribunal again directed Google to deposit 10% of the fine with its registry in the next four weeks.
Google Play Store is an online marketplace where people can download applications, games, movies, books or TV shows on their Android devices.
The fine was imposed on October 25, following which Google had said that it is pausing enforcement of the requirement for application developers to use Google Play’s billing system for the purchase of digital goods and services for transactions by users in India.
The Competition Commission of India has been investigating Google since 2019 after it had received complaints from consumers regarding the company’s Android smartphone agreement.
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