The Competition Commission of India (CCI) today published a decision dated 31 January 2018 finding Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Google India Private Limited (Google) to have abused its dominant position in violation of Section 4 of the Competition Act, and imposed a penalty of INR 135.86 (USD 21.15 million) on Google. In addition, the CCI has ordered Google to add a disclaimer to its Commercial Flights unit box and not enforce restrictive and abusive clauses in its search intermediation agreements.

The CCI held that Google enjoys a dominant position in ‘Online General Web Search’ and ‘Web Search Advertising services’. Further, the CCI held Google liable for abusing its dominance in three ways – first, placement of Universal Results before 2010 were pre-determined by Google and not based on relevance, which was unfair to the users; second, prominent display and placement of Commercial Flight Unit with link to Google’s specialized Flight search service is unfair imposition and deprives users of additional choices, and third, prohibitions imposed on publishers under the negotiated search intermediation agreements are unfair as this restricts their choice of partners.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co represented Matrimony.com before the CCI and the Office of the Director General (DG). The Team was led by Naval Satarawala Chopra, Partner; assisted by Yaman Verma, Principal Associate; Aman Singh Sethi, Senior Associate; and Sapan Parekh, Associate. Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co briefed Mr. Rajshekhar Rao, Advocate, to lead arguments on behalf of Matrimony.com before the CCI.