The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would begin the final hearing of the appeals by both Google and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) from October 10.
In March, the NCLAT partially upheld the CCI order on the abuse of its dominant market position in the Android ecosystem and directed Google to
pay a Rs 1,338 crore penalty that the CCI imposed.
The NCLAT has struck down the CCI direction requiring Google to allow access to its Play Store API, the CCI direction requiring Google to allow the uninstallation of pre-installed apps, the CCI direction mandating Google to allow other app stores on the Play Store, and the CCI direction to Google requiring it to allow side-loading of apps by other app developers.
On the other hand, the NCLAT has upheld six CCI directions against Google.
It has held that Google can't force OEMs to pre-install an entire suite of apps, position apps in a certain way, license the Play Store to OEMs linked to pre-installation of Chrome, Search, Maps, Youtube, or any other app, pay OEMs to maintain exclusivity of its search services, impose anti-fragmentation obligations on OEMs, or obligate OEMs not to sell smart devices based on Android forks. Additionally, Google must allow users to choose their default search engine during the initial device setup.
