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Yandex appeals against rejection for its involvement in Google antimonopoly proceedings

On February 5, 2015, the court brought Yandex as a third party in the Google case and decided to hold hearings behind closed doors

MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. Russian Internet company Yandex submitted an appeal against rejection of its participation as a third party in the case of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) against US Google Corporation, press service of the company told TASS on Monday.

On November 1, the Moscow Arbitration Court adjourned the case of the FAS fine in the amount of 438.1 mln rubles ($6.6 mln) for Google’s abuse of the dominating position on the online application stores market in Russia until December 8. Furthermore, the Court has decided to review the case behind closed doors and rejected the application of Yandex for participation in the case as a third party.

"Joinder to the fine case as the third party will make possible for the company to promote proper presentation of facts in this process. We regret saying we have to participate in all procedural activities pertaining to this case because Google has not yet performed the FAS decision. Contrary to the citation, manufacturers still have to preinstall Google search by default and preinstall the whole GMS (Google Mobile Services - TASS) if they want to manufacturer the device with Google Play. Such unique terms of pre-installation on Android are not accessible for anyone else except Google," Yandex press service said".

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.

Google did not agree with FAS decision and appealed to the court. On February 5, 2015, the Court brought Yandex as a third party in the case and decided to hold hearings behind closed doors. On March 14, the Moscow Arbitration Court has dismissed the lawsuit Google filed against Russia’s FAS.

In March 2016, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) initiated administrative proceedings against Google to determine the amount of fine under part 2 article 14.31 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences. According to the article, in view of the abuse of dominant position on the market of operating systems for mobile devices in Russia, Google as the owner of the Android OS can pay a fine ranging from 1% to 15% of its revenues on the Russian market in 2014.

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.