According to Reuters, Google claims that India’s competition commission “copied” portions of an EU verdict in its decision to punish the company.
According to the article, the IT giant made this statement in a plea to an Indian appeals tribunal.
On Wednesday, the tribunal will hear Google’s appeal against the fine.
The Indian regulator punished Google with 13 billion rupees ($157 million; £131 million) in October for monopolising the market with its Android platform.
To ensure the dominance of its apps, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) accused Google of getting into “one-sided arrangements” with smartphone manufacturers.
Google reportedly claimed that the CCI’s investigations unit used “material from Europe that was not evaluated in India” in a filing to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), according to Reuters. Also stated was the existence of “more than 50 instances of copy-pasting” in the decision of the European Commission.
The submission, which has not been made public, was examined, according to Reuters.
The CCI stated in its announcement of the penalties on October 20 that Google was “abusing” the licencing of its Android operating system for a variety of cellphones, web searches, browsing, and video hosting services.
It said that Google was entering into coerced agreements with other businesses in the market to secure the usage of a variety of its products, including Google Chrome, YouTube, Google Maps, and others. According to the CCI, this stifled competition while giving Google ongoing access to customer data and lucrative advertising opportunities.
Authorities are also looking into Google’s actions in the smart TV market and its in-app payment system. Google is currently the target of several antitrust cases in India.
Following complaints from users of Android handsets, the investigation into Android was launched in 2019.
The situation is comparable to that of Google in Europe, where authorities in 2018 fined the corporation a record amount for utilising the Android operating system to solidify its dominance in search engine rankings. Google filed a legal appeal against the order in September of last year, but it was unsuccessful.
The CCI fined Google again for anti-competitive behaviour a few days after the October 20 order. In opposition to this, Google has also appealed.
