Russian antitrust waiting for Google to mend breaches by Nov 28

MOSCOW, Nov 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service expects Google to report on its mending of violations on the local market of mobile applications by November 28, otherwise the authority will take measures, a spokesperson for the service said late Tuesday.

“Google should report to the service through November 28 on the fulfillment of the order to eliminate breaches of the antimonopoly law. In case of disrespect, measures will be taken,” the spokesperson said.

The authority’s Director Igor Artemyev said earlier that the service would go to court to force Google to follow its order, if the company continues ignoring it.

In September 2015, the Federal Antimonopoly Service found Google guilty of abusing its dominant position on the local market of preinstalled application stores and forcing Android device manufacturers to install its Google Play in a tie-up with its other programs. The case was opened upon complaint by local Internet giant Yandex.

The authority slapped a fine of 438 million rubles on Google, or 9% of the company’s turnover on the local market of mobile applications in 2014, but the date to pay the penalty expired in August.

On November 2, the watchdog fined Google Inc. and Google Ireland Ltd. 500,000 rubles each for a failure to fix the breaches. The companies are litigating the decision at court with preliminary hearings of one of the fines scheduled for December 6.

(63.6282 rubles – U.S. $1)

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