The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service's Case Against Google Related to Bundling and other Anticompetitive Practices with Respect to Android

摘要

Key Points 1. The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) was the first competition authority in the world to issue an infringement decision against Google's practices in respect of Android. Similar cases are now being considered by the European Commission, Korea's Fair Trade Commission and, most recently, Turkey's competition authority. 2. FAS found that Google abused its dominant position, in particular, by distributing its dominant product - the Google Play app store - only as part of a suite of applications and services that includes more than 10 Google apps for Android, i.e. bundling as a means of leveraging market power. 3. Given the lack of precedents and the absence of clarity on the possibility of applying classic antitrust to innovative markets, FAS had to find its own approach to the many topical issues, including a possibility of the application of the bundling theory of harm in the IT sector.