Google has moved the Delhi High Court against the leak of antitrust body CCI’s confidential report pertaining to the investigation against the tech giant. Google, in a statement, said it aims to prevent any further unlawful disclosures of confidential findings by the investigative arm of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The tech giant noted that it has “not yet received or reviewed this confidential report”.
The CCI directed the DG’s office, a functionally separate investigative arm of the CCI, to investigate Google’s conduct in Android smartphones on April 16, 2019. Over the next two years, during the investigation, the tech giant had submitted a large amount of confidential information extending full cooperation by sharing sensitive and confidential financial and product statistics.
According to the leaked report submitted by the DG’s office to the CCI on September 18, Google was found guilty of using practices to muzzle competition trying to maintain dominance in several areas it operates in including music (YouTube), search engine (Chrome) and app store (Play Store) among others.
As reported in Hindu Business Line, commenting on the Google-CCI matter, Charanya Lakshmikumaran, Partner, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys, said: “It will be interesting to see whether the investigation report has analysed actual or potential harm to competition and consumers as a result of the alleged exclusivity and tying and bundling of the apps. Digital markets’ investigations require elevation of the traditional anti-trust tools to review multi-sided markets and network effects as some of the factors. We look forward to the CCI’s decision in this case and to see their examination of the effect Google’s conduct has had in the Indian market. Given the size of the Indian market for android phones, this is likely to be a landmark judgment of the CCI”.
Google has raised its concern viz maintaining confidentiality as the fundamental rule to government investigation as any such leakage can prejudice the concerns of Google.
Image source: HT Tech
