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Court registers Google’s new lawsuit vs Russia’s anti-trust regulator

MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. Moscow Arbitration Court has registered a new lawsuit filed by Google (its branches Google Inc. and Google Ireland Ltd) against the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS - Russia’s anti-trust regulator), according to the data from the court’s register of arbitration cases.

Google representatives decline to comment on the situation.

A spokesman with FAS told TASS that they have not received any notifications yet.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia's Supreme Court confirmed that the main case of the FAS against Google in regard to the company abusing its dominant market position on the Android OS (part of Google) should be considered by arbitration court.

Google wanted the case to be handed over to the Intellectual Property Rights Court but the FAS opposed it.

In September 2015, the Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled that Google Inc. and Google Ireland Ltd. had breached the competition protection law under the complaint of the Russian Internet company Yandex.

According to the regulator, Google obliged manufacturers of Android OS-based devices to pre-install its applications together with Android platform. FAS said that Google’s policy restricted installation of applications by other developers. Google did not agree with the ruling and appealed to the court.

On September 29, Google started to notify Russian users of the Android devices about the possibility of changing the search engine, deactivating pre-installed applications, installing third-party services (including third-party search engines and widgets, email, calendar, and other services) and changing position of application icons. Google noted it continues to work with FAS on technical execution of their orders.

Google lodged an appeal against the court judgement in favor of FAS regarding the case on abusing dominant position.

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