(Updated) Arbitration Court dismissed Google’s appeal against FAS decision

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A week ago, the Federal Antimonopoly Service appointed an administrative fine of 438 million rubles to Google for violating antitrust laws in the Russian Federation. The initiator of the proceedings was the company "Yandex", according to which Google used its dominant position in the market and forbade third-party companies to pre-install software on the Android OS, which is owned by the search giant.

Negotiations of the FAS and Google on the settlement did not lead to anything, Google filed an appeal, but the arbitral tribunal rejected it, taking the position of the antimonopoly service.

The imposed fine of 438 million rubles (or about 6.8 million dollars) is not the biggest problem for Google. According to the court’s decision, in addition to the payment of compensation, the company is obliged to eliminate the violations on the basis of the Law on Protection of Competition. This means that Google must remove conditions from contracts with vendors and device developers, according to which the latter cannot be pre-installed on the search giant's competitors on Android devices sold.

In addition, by a court decision, Google will not be able to oblige developers and vendors to pre-install the application package from the Google Mobile Services package (for example, this is Google Maps, Google Chrome, Gmail, Play Store).

Under the conditions of constant struggle and attempts by Google to dominate all possible directions available to it, this means strengthening the position of Yandex, which already occupies one of the leading positions on the Russian market of search engines and services.

The initial reason for applying to Yandex to court is the unilateral termination of contracts for the pre-installation of company applications from a number of vendors. According to the wording of the latter, the main reason for default on obligations and refusal to work with Yandex was Google’s contractual restrictions on the pre-installation of competitors' software on the Android OS.

The share of smartphones running the Android OS on the Russian market is estimated at 80% of the total number of devices.

UPD: according to Prime , the FAS, after the dismissal of Google’s appeal by the arbitral tribunal, stated that the search giant has 8 days to complete the prescriptions (payment of 438 million rubles), otherwise it faces a new fine. On the implementation of all the conditions set by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, namely, the change of contracts with vednormi and developers, Google has time until December 18, 2016.

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