Google takes Android dominance battle to Supreme Court

Google has escalated its legal battle against India's competition watchdog, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), by filing an appeal in the Supreme Court. The tech giant is challenging a March 2025 ruling by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) which largely affirmed the CCI's findings that Google abused its dominant position in the Android ecosystem through its Play Store policies and the promotion of Google Pay.

The appeal, filed on July 21, is expected to be listed for hearing soon. This development marks the latest chapter in a protracted legal dispute that began with a CCI investigation into Google's Play Store billing practices in November 2020.

In October 2022, the CCI had initially concluded that Google engaged in anti-competitive behavior by mandating the use of its Google Play Billing System (GPBS) for app purchases, while exempting its own applications like YouTube from similar commission structures. The CCI imposed a hefty fine of ₹936.44 crore and directed Google to cease these practices, including allowing third-party billing and ensuring data transparency.

The NCLAT's March 28 ruling largely upheld the core findings of abuse. The tribunal agreed that Google leveraged its dominance in the markets for licensable operating systems for smartphones and app stores for Android OS to unfairly promote Google Pay, thereby violating Section 4(2)(e) of the Competition Act.

"We are satisfied that dominance in [the] first two markets has been used to leverage to promote and protect its position in the market for UPI enabled digital payment apps,” the NCLAT stated in its judgment. It also affirmed the CCI's conclusion under Section 4(2)(a)(i) that Google imposed unfair and discriminatory conditions on developers through mandatory GPBS usage.

However, the NCLAT also provided some relief to Google. It set aside the CCI's findings regarding denial of market access and restriction of innovation, noting that Google's billing services constituted less than 1% of total UPI transactions and that there was insufficient evidence of market foreclosure or hindrance to technical development.

Crucially, the NCLAT overturned several "ex-ante" or preventive directives issued by the CCI, including obligations based on Google's designation as a "gatekeeper." Citing the 2024 Digital Competition Law Committee Report, the Tribunal ruled that such forward-looking measures exceeded the CCI's powers under the existing ex-post competition law framework.

The original penalty of ₹936.44 crore was also recalibrated by the NCLAT. The tribunal determined that the CCI erred in applying the penalty to Google’s global turnover, reducing the fine to ₹216.69 crore by limiting it to Play Store-specific revenues.

In a subsequent order on May 1, the NCLAT addressed what it described as an "inadvertent error" in its original judgment, reinstating two key data-related directives from the CCI. These directives require Google to disclose its data policies and refrain from leveraging billing data for competitive advantage. Google's objection that this amounted to a review of the judgment was rejected by the tribunal.

The Supreme Court will now review Google’s appeal, which challenges both the substance of the NCLAT's ruling and the procedural correction made in its May 1 order. The outcome of this appeal will have significant implications for how dominant digital platforms operate in India's rapidly evolving digital economy.

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