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Google may face minimum penalty on dispute with Yandex if meets requirements of regulator

Earlier Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service said Google had violated the law on competition and ordered the US company to remove violations before 18 November

MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. Google may get off lucky by paying a minimal penalty if it meets the provisions of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), the head of the regulator Igor Artemyev told reporters on Friday.

Earlier FAS said that Google had violated the law on competition, following the complaint of the Yandex search engine and ordered the US company to remove violations before 18 November.

Google has not made any official comments regarding the decision of the Russian regulator yet.

"They /Google - TASS/ should decide whether they will defend themselves in court or not. If they suddenly tell us that they agree and will fulfill our requirements, it is a serious mitigating factor. According to the administrative code, in this case the penalty will be minimal. If all the conditions are met - the law has the so-called "four-eighths", then it /the penalty -TASS/ will be 1% of the turnover on this market," he said.

According to Artemyev, the final decision on the penalty is likely to be made after November 18, as the agency is waiting for Google's reply and is calculating the market’s volume.

The sum of the penalty includes Google's revenues from sales of all applications in Google Play, music, videos, etc. for 2014 on the territory of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Kudryavtsev, head of Information Technology departments at FAS, told TASS.

Denis Kuskov, TelecomDaily general director, estimated Google Play annual turnover in Russia at more than $70 million.

On September 14, FAS ruled the US Internet company Google violating the law on competition on Yandex claim, filed earlier this year.

"Found guilty on Part 1, Article 10 "Abuse of a dominant position" of the federal law on competition," he said.

According to Kudryavtsev, Google preconditions pre-installation to producers of Android mobile devices of Google Play store by a number of terms.

The FAS representative said that the US search provider may face a substantial fine.

"Violation of Article 10 implies a turnover-based fine ranging from 1 to 15% of the company’s revenues on the market where the violation took place, for the year preceding the consideration. In any case, the sum is substantial," Kudryavtsev said.