(Reuters) – India’s competition regulator on Thursday denied allegations by Google that investigators copied parts of a European order while ruling against the U.S. firm for abusing the market dominance of its Android platform.
“We have not cut, copy and paste,” N Venkataraman, a government lawyer representing the Competition Commission of India (CCI), told the top court.
The comments came at a hearing in India’s Supreme Court, where Google is seeking to block the CCI ruling.
The body fined Alphabet Inc-owned Google $161 million for exploiting its dominant position in Android, which powers 97% of smartphones in India, and asked it to change restrictions imposed on smartphone makers related to pre-installing apps.
Google had challenged the directive saying it would hurt consumers and also its business, warning the growth of the Android ecosystem will stall if the far-reaching measures were to be implemented.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra, Arpan Chaturvedi and Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Toby Chopra)
