Russian antitrust says amicable settlement with Google unlikely

MOSCOW, Mar 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service will unlikely reach a compromise in its discord with Google, as the U.S giant “is behaving aggressively”, the antitrust authority’s Director Igor Artemyev said Wednesday.

“Google has addressed nobody. It protects its legal rights, which is a normal procedure. We also protect interests of our companies, interests of competition. That is why I don’t believe anymore in any compromises,” Artemyev said.

The Moscow Arbitration Court earlier upheld the antimonopoly service’s conclusion that Google had abused its dominant position on the local market of preinstalled application stores by obliging producers to install other services along with Google Play.

“The company speaks in such an aggressive way both in Russian and foreign press. We read what is written: the Federal Antimonopoly Service has violated procedures during the study of the case, which is nonsense,” Artemyev said.

“We have nothing to worry about: they’ve just chosen this tactic. I could only say that this approach is not the best practice. Such a respected corporation could behave in better traditions of litigation and protection of its own rights and interests.”

The service expects Google to contest the court’s decision and will then decide upon a fine, the authority’s head said, adding that the volume of the market or the possible fine have not been calculated yet.

“This is not a problem. It’s a matter of two seconds…We are just waiting for an appeal. The first level is passed. After the second level of procedures we will immediately announce the fine, maybe sooner,” he said.

Google could face a fine of 8% of its turnover on the market in case of no mitigating circumstances, Artemyev said in late 2015.

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