Karnataka High Court Extends Time For Google India To Reply To CCI Probe On Playstore Payment Policy

A single judge bench of Justice SG Pandit orally told the company which sought eight weeks' time, "You complete your job."

CCI is currently probing if Google employs anti-competitive measures to require developers distributing their apps through Play Store to use Google Play's billing system and to pay 15-30% on the sale of digital goods as a service fee. CCI had reportedly prima facie found the tech giant guilty of adopting anti-competitive, unfair and restrictive trade practices in the mobile operating system and related markets.

The company had approached questioning the order passed by the Competition Commission of India, dated May 30, and June 14, by which its directed the company to respond to the DG Report by July 7.

Further it fixed August 2 as the date for final hearing on the Second ADIF IRA, the 6 May Match Letters and the DG Report. Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium and Sajan Povvayya appearing for the company submitted that approximately 13,000 pages and 27 pen drives have to be gone through and prepare the reply and thus it sought for eight weeks time.

Subramanium said, "We (Google) have given an undertaking that till October 31, we are not enforcing the Google Pay policy, thus if eight weeks time is granted it will only be upto September, when the CCI can begin its final hearing."

Senior Advocate Dhyan Chinnappa appearing for the respondent no 3, MATCH GROUP INC submitted that it was yet another delay tactic adopted by the company. The bench expressed that it would give reasonable time for the parties and accordingly it allowed Google to file its reply by July 30.

The plea had prayed for a writ quashing the impugned Order dated 30 May 2022 to the extent it denies the Petitioners' request for revision of the non-confidential version of the DG Report and contains prejudicial statements against the Petitioners. Further, the order dated 14 June 2022 passed by Respondent No.1 / Commission in Case Nos. 7 of 2020, clubbed with Case no. 14 of 2021 and Case No. 35 of 2021 as illegal, invalid, arbitrary and non-est.

Case Title: GOOGLE INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED v. COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA

Case No: WP 13422/2022

Appearance: Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium, Sajan Poovayya, and Advocates Dharmendra Chatur, Abraham Joseph and Ishi Prakash for petitioner; Senior Advocate Harish Narasappa a/w Advocate Nayana Tara BG, for R1; Advocate Abir Roy a/w Advocate Gautamaditya Sridhara for R2; Senior Advocate Dhyan Chinnappa for R3.