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The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has amended its March 2025 order to reinstate two key directions from the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) antitrust order against Google for misusing its dominant position in relation to Play Store policies. The move marks a fresh setback for the tech giant in one of its biggest user markets.

In a new order dated May 1, NCLAT clarified that two measures - using Play Billing data to further its competitive advantage, and providing a clear and transparent data-sharing policy - have been upheld and were not set aside as stated in the March 2025 order.

In the order, the tribunal submitted that it had held these directions as sustained in the body of the judgement, however, it inadvertently issued directions to overturn them in the operative part of the order.

In March, a two-member bench, comprising chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan partially upheld key aspects of CCI's order and reduced Google's penalty from Rs 936.44 crore to Rs 216.69 crore.

CCI initially fined Google Rs 936.44 crore in October 2022 for abusing its dominant position with regard to its Play Store policies, in addition to issuing a cease-and-desist order. It also issued a series of measures to modify the company's app payment policies. This move came about two years after CCI ordered an investigation into the mandatory use of Google Play Store's payment system for paid apps and in-app purchases in November 2020.

In its ruling in March 2025, NCLAT upheld CCI's decision that Google has imposed unfair and discriminatory conditions on app developers by mandating the use of Google Play Billing System (GPBS) for paid app sales and in-app purchases.

It also agreed with CCI's finding that Google used its dominance over the Android and Play Store ecosystems to promote its payment app Google Pay over rival UPI digital payment apps.

The tribunal also upheld CCI's directives such as Google allowing app developers to use any third party billing or payment processing service for app sales or in-app purchases.

The tech giant cannot restrict app developers from communicating with their users or direct them outside the Google Play ecosystem to promote their apps and offerings. It also cannot discriminate against other apps facilitating UPI payments in India in favor of its own UPI app or prevent users from accessing or using features and services offered by app developers within their apps.

NCLAT however overtuned other aspects, stating that Google did not deny market access to rival payment processors and aggregators, since GPBS represents less than 1 percent of the broader digital payments ecosystem in India.

The tribunal also rejected CCI's claim that Google engaged in discriminatory pricing by allowing its own apps, such as YouTube, to avoid service fees while charging other apps 15-30 percent. It noted that since YouTube is Google's own app, there was no "sale of goods or services" involved.

Google was also fined Rs 1,337.76 crore for abusing its dominant position in the Android Mobile device ecosystem in October 2022. The firm is said to have paid the entire penalty amount after NCLAT upheld the fine in March 2023. Last month, CCI approved Google's settlement proposal in the Android TV antitrust case, as part of the company is paying Rs 20.24 crore.

With this announcement, Google became the first firm to make use of the settlement scheme introduced under the country's competition law in April 2023, which was officially notified in March 2024.

That said, the tech giant continues to face a series of antitrust probes from CCI for alleged abuse of dominance in its other businesses such as news aggregation, and more recently, the company's policies regarding the real-money gaming segment.

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