By Aditya Kalra and Arpan Chaturvedi
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Google has filed a legal challenge in India’s Supreme Court to dam a ruling by the country’s antitrust watchdog that may force the U.S. company to vary the way it markets its Android platform, court records showed on Saturday.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) in October fined the Alphabet Inc unit $161 million for exploiting its dominant position out there for Android, which powers 97% of smartphones in India and is a key growth region for the U.S. giant.
The challenge comes after Google suffered a setback on Wednesday when an appeals tribunal rejected its request to dam the antitrust ruling. The corporate argued that implementation of the CCI’s directives will hurt its long-standing business model and consumer interests.
Supreme Court records show Google filed a challenge against the tribunal ruling on Saturday. A hearing date is yet to be fixed.
Reuters was first to report on Thursday about Google’s planned strategy.
Sources earlier this week told Reuters that Google considers a legal challenge as its last hope of blocking the ruling of the CCI, whose directives forcing the corporate to vary its business model kick in on Jan. 19.
Google’s Supreme Court filing seeks to place the CCI decison on hold while its appeal is heard, said one person acquainted with the matter on Saturday.
Google has been concerned in regards to the Indian decision because the remedies ordered are seen as more sweeping than the European Commission’s landmark 2018 ruling for imposing illegal restrictions on Android mobile device makers. Google has challenged the record $4.3 billion fantastic in that case.
A Google spokesperson didn’t immediately respond.
The CCI ruled in October that Google’s licensing of its Play Store “shall not be linked with the requirement of pre-installing” Google search services, the Chrome browser, YouTube or another Google applications.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra, Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditi Shah in Recent Delhi; Editing by Mike Harrison)
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