SC Moves Date Of Google's Appeal Against CCI's Rs 1,338 Crore Penalty To Jan 2024

The Supreme Court has moved the date for Google's appeal against the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's (NCLAT) order to January 2024.

The NCLAT upheld the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) fine of Rs 1,338 crore for anti-trust violations, according to Moneycontrol.

The hearing was originally scheduled for October 11th but has been postponed due to constitution bench hearings.

Senior advocate Harish Salve and Additional Solicitor General Venkatraman representing Google and CCI requested a new listing date as the case is unlikely to be heard on October 10th.

The Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, indicated that the case will be listed in the last week of January and kept free on his schedule.

In March 2023, the NCLAT partially upheld the CCI's penalty against Google for the abuse of Android dominance.

Recently, the anti-trust appellate tribunal ruled that the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) decision was unbiased.

Additionally, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) found that Google's requirement for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to pre-install the entire Google Suite of 11 applications was unjust.

However, the NCLAT overturned four of the CCI's directives, including Google's right to send warnings to users who downloaded applications from unknown sources, not sharing its proprietary application program interface (API) with third parties, and not permitting third-party application stores on its Play Stores to avoid malware.

Google was also allowed to restrict the uninstallation of Google Suite apps on Android phones.

It is important to note that the CCI has challenged this ruling in the Supreme Court. In October 2022, the CCI found that Google was abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem. As a result, they ordered Google to stop these practices and pay a penalty of Rs 1,338 crore.