Russia: Regulator sees possibility of out-of-court agreement with Google

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly (FAS) still sees an opportunity for signing an amicable agreement with Google regarding the lawsuit of this company demanding to declare the decision of the Russian regulator invalid aid there us, the regulator’s head Igor Artemyev told reporters on Tuesday.

“We proceed from the assumption that such a proposal may be made any time. But in order to make it certain we need one. A company which has different relations with us should say: yes, we agree that we have violated this or that provision in the law on competition,” – he said.

“If they [Google – TASS] at any stage of the legal hearing tell us that they want it we will judge by the situation of course but this is not impossible,” he added.

On September 14, 2015 the Federal Antimonopoly Service ruled that Google Inc. and Google Ireland Ltd. had breached the competition protection law under the complaint of the Russian Internet company Yandex. According to the regulator, Google obliged manufacturers of Android OS-based devices to pre-install its applications together with Android platform. The FAS said that Google’s policy restricted installation of applications by other developers. Google did not agree with the ruling and appealed to the court.

Full content: TASS

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