refused to stay a Rs 1,337.76 crore penalty imposed on the technology giant by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for alleged anti-competitive practices.
The Alphabet subsidiary is likely to mention the matter for urgent hearing early next week, as under the antitrust body’s order, the company must by January 19 make changes to the way it markets the Android platform in India, people in the know of the matter said.
Several parties including OSLabs Technology have filed caveats before the Supreme Court to ensure that they are heard before the passing of any order.
On January 4, the NCLAT refused to stay the antitrust regulator’s order citing “lack of urgency” — the company took two months to file its appeal — and
asked Google to deposit 10% of the penalty within three weeks.
In its petition before the Supreme Court, Google said the appellate tribunal’s order was completely ambiguous and unsustainable as the direction for deposit of 10% of the penalty amount did not grant any interim protection against the other directions issued by the CCI.
Seeking quashing of the CCI’s findings, directions and the penalty, Google said the antitrust watchdog’s order was “patently erroneous” and ignored the reality of competition in India, its procompetitive business model, and the benefits created for all stakeholders.
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The CCI director-general, who had probed the allegations, copy-pasted the conclusions from the decisions of foreign authorities “without any application of mind”, it said.
‘Procompetitive business model’
“The impugned order is fraught with substantive, analytical and procedural errors including inter alia ignoring exculpatory evidence, statements from Indian OEMs (original equipment makers) and developers…” the company said.
Such errors, the appeal claimed, led the commission to make “perverse and incorrect” findings.
The
CCI on October 20 penalised Google, for allegedly exploiting its dominant position in markets such as online search and through the Android app store.
It asked the Internet major to cease and desist from various unfair business practices, and prescribed eight corrective measures that Google Play needed to implement.
This decision, according to Google, would expose Indian users to unprecedented security risks, and make Android devices in India more expensive.
Google approached the NCLAT against the CCI order on December 20.
According to the company, its compatibility measures were necessary for the Android ecosystem and do not inhibit innovation.
“OEMs commit to follow minimal baseline requirements for their devices (e.g., devices to include a microphone, and enable app installation), and at the same time can innovate on top of the baseline. The minimal baseline ensures that apps function well across all compatible Android devices,” it stated.
Ignoring these undeniably procompetitive benefits, the CCI directions operate on a speculation and seek to dismantle the Android ecosystem in India and completely undermines public interest, user safety and privacy for Indian Android users, and is detrimental to app developers and OEMs, according to the appeal.
The paramount interest of competition law is to achieve lower prices and wider choice for consumers through increased competition and the CCI order would achieve the opposite by increasing costs for OEMs and reducing choice for consumers, the appeal stated, adding that a disproportionate and excessive penalty, contrary to established principles of competition law had been imposed on it.
Google termed as “tainted” the investigations done against it by the CCI, contending that “no credible market participants” had ever asked the regulator to “intervene” or had ever complained about its conduct in the Android mobile device market.
Indian device manufacturers such as Lava and Micromax had written to the CCI asking it to “recognise the harm that would result from ill-considered interventions”.
