FAS opened a case against Google in March 2015 following a complaint from Yandex, which complained that it was forcing Android device manufacturers to refuse to pre-install competitors’ applications / M. Stulov / Vedomosti

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has won its case against Google – the appellate court upheld the first instance decision, a representative of the FAS told Vedomosti. “We are glad that the court upheld the FAS decision and that Google will fully comply with the order to eliminate competition violations,” said Elena Zaeva, head of the FAS Department for Regulation of Communications and IT. The decision has entered into legal force.

The FAS opened a case against Google in March 2015 following a complaint from Yandex, which complained that it was forcing Android device manufacturers to refuse to pre-install competitors’ applications. In late 2015, the FAS decided that Google had abused its monopoly position in the mobile application market for Android phones, and ordered Google to, among other things, unlink the Google Play app store from other services and remove restrictions on installing applications from other developers from its agreements with mobile device manufacturers. The American corporation challenged this decision in court.

Last week, the FAS determined the fine for Google – 438 million rubles. The head of the FAS, Igor Artemyev, said that the fine could amount to 7% of Google’s annual revenue for 2014 on the app store market in Russia.

The fine has not yet been paid, Zaeva said. Now Google must comply with the orders and eliminate violations in contracts with vendors, otherwise the American corporation "faces a new fine," she warned.

Google's chances of challenging the court's decision are not high, since the cassation and supervisory instances do not consider the factual circumstances of the dispute, believes BGP Litigation advisor Sergei Lisin. "But some of the corporation's arguments - for example, about the incorrect definition of the product market and Google's share in it, about the licensing nature of the concluded agreements - may become the basis for sending the case for a new hearing," he believes.

A Yandex spokesperson said the company was pleased that the court had upheld the FAS's findings. A Google spokesperson said the company had not yet received the court's decision.

Court upholds fine for Google