Russian antirust ready for truce with Google, may reduce fine

MOSCOW, Mar 1 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service is ready to conclude an amicable agreement with Google, if the U.S. giant completely fulfils the authority’s warrant to mend violations on the local market of preinstalled application stores on Android devices, the service’s Director Igor Artemyev told reporters on Wednesday.

Google, which offered a truce to the service on Tuesday, has not presented any details of the presumed agreements, and conditions of the deal are unclear so far, Artemyev said, adding that the service will insist on its warrant being respected.

“We’ll certainly persist on fulfilment of our warrant, including the abolition of anticompetitive deals and so forth…I think that our colleagues, rather than opponents since we’ve entered a conciliatory process, should understand that we’ll stick to our decision and protect our markets,” Artemyev said.

The antimonopoly service wants Google to fix violations, which include forcing smartphone manufacturers to preinstall Google Play in a tie-up with the company’s other applications.

The authority brought the company to administrative responsibility and imposed a 438 million ruble fine, which was challenged by Google.

Artemyev did not rule out a cut in the amount of penalty for Google. “It is not the fine that matters. It’s important to restore competition on the market to have equal opportunities for different companies,” the official said.

(57.9627 rubles – U.S. $1)

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