UPDATE: Russian court upholds 500,000 rbl fine legitimacy for Google Inc

(Adds comments in Yandex in last two paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Dec 20 (PRIME) -- The Moscow Arbitration Court confirmed on Tuesday legitimacy of a 500,000 ruble fine imposed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service on Google Inc. for disrespect of its warrant.

The court dismissed Google Inc.’s request to cancel the antimonopoly service’s decision as of November 2 to bring the company to administrative justice as it has failed to mend violations on the mobile application market.

The service found Google Inc. and Google Ireland Ltd. guilty and fined each of them 500,000 rubles. Google Ireland Ltd. also litigated the punishment.

The antimonopoly service found Google guilty in September 2015 of abusing its dominance on the local market of preinstalled application stores on Android devices. The authority 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 service earlier imposed a 438 million ruble fine on Google, which litigated the penalty, but the court has not considered it yet.

Local Internet giant Yandex, which initiated antimonopoly case and participated in it as a third party, approved of the court’s decision.

“We see that Google has not fulfilled requirements of the antimonopoly authority so far, and we agree with the position of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, which decided in favor of a fine for disrespect. We welcome today’s court decision, which supported the service’s move,” a Yandex spokesperson said.

(61.7931 rubles – U.S. $1)

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