Antitrust opens case against Yandex for discriminating other firms

MOSCOW, Apr 14 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has opened a case against Internet company Yandex for discrimination of other firm’s services in its search and can punish it with a fine of 0.01% to 0.15% of revenue received on the market, where the violation took place, according to the watchdog’s statement released late on Tuesday.

“The company has failed to obey the antitrust authority’s warning and continues to create discriminatory conditions on the Internet search market. The Federal Antimonopoly Service will study possible anti-competition practices promoting the services of the Yandex group in search results and estimate the consequences such practices led or could have led,” the regulator said.

If the fact of violation and limitation of competition is confirmed, the company will have to pay a fine.

According to Yandex, the company’s share on the local search market, including mobile devices, reached 59.7% on average in October–December 2020.

The antitrust authority issued the warning to Yandex in February, and the company was to provide other firms’ services with access to the special opportunities exploited by its own resources within a month, which the company did not do.

A Yandex spokesperson told PRIME the company disagrees with the accusations and is ready to stand fast. “Enriched answers in search is international practice, and all search engines give expanded answers to the users. More than 30,000 firms already use our technology of rich search for free. Moreover, we’re widening available technologies of enriched answers for our partners,” the spokesperson said.

Yandex lost 5.25% on Tuesday to 4,600 rubles per share on the Moscow Exchange.

(77.2535 rubles – U.S. $1)

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