Google claims that India’s commission “copied” EU verdict

• On Wednesday, the tribunal will hear Google’s appeal against the fine.
• Indian regulator punished Google 13 billion rupees for monopolizing.
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• 2019 saw the launch of the Android-related investigation.

Google claims that India’s competition commission “copied” portions of an EU verdict in its decision to punish the company.

According to the article, the IT giant made this statement in a plea to an Indian appeals tribunal.

On Wednesday, the tribunal will hear Google’s appeal against the fine.

The Indian regulator punished Google 13 billion rupees ($157 million; £131 million) in October for monopolising the market with its Android platform.

Google was charged with entering into “one-sided deals” with smartphone manufacturers in order to maintain the dominance of its apps, according to the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Reuters stated that Google claimed the CCI’s investigations branch used “material from Europe that was not evaluated in India,” according to the filing presented to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). Additionally, it claimed that “more than 50 instances of copy-pasting” from the decision of the European Commission occurred.

The CCI stated that Google was “abusing” the licencing of its Android operating system for a variety of smartphones, web searches, browsing, and video hosting services when it announced the fine on October 20.

It claimed that Google was entering into coerced deals with competitors in order to force users to use its suite of programmes, including Google Maps, Google Chrome, and YouTube. The CCI claimed that doing this stifled competition and provided Google with ongoing access to consumer data and profitable advertising opportunities.

In addition to being the subject of several antitrust proceedings in India, authorities are also looking into Google’s actions in the market for smart TVs and its in-app payment system.

2019 saw the launch of the Android-related investigation in response to customer complaints about Android smartphones.

The situation is comparable to the one Google encountered in Europe, where authorities fined the corporation a record amount in 2018 for abusing the Android operating system to maintain the supremacy of its search engine. Google lost a legal appeal it had made against the order in September of last year.

Days following the order from October 20th, the CCI fined Google again for anti-competitive behaviour. Google has also filed an appeal against this.