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AT Wednesday’s hearing, Google’s lawyers said the CCI order was “overbearing”

GOOGLE has argued that only 3% of all Play Store apps face commissions were reinstated—initially without an in-app payment tool, but subsequently in full, albeit with a declaration from Google that each of them would be billed for its service fee henceforth.

Google levies a service fee of 11-30% from apps that sell “digital services” on its Play Store, a fee that many parties say is disproportionate to the service that Google provides. On 15 March, CCI initiated a fresh probe into Google’s Play Store pricing. The investigation is expected to be completed by next week.

A third lawyer who advises Google said on condition of anonymity, that it was “unusual” for a competition regulator to be involved in deciding market pricing. “One tenet of competition law is to let a party continue with pricing as deemed fit—if the pricing is high, this implies high demand, which in itself is an impetus for competitors to enter the industry and eventually bring the pricing down. However, in this case, Apple and Google essentially run a duopoly, and the app marketplaces is not a competitive arena. Even then, determining fair pricing would take far more complications into account,” the lawyer said.

In FY23, Google’s India revenue of $3.36 billion accounted for just over 1% of its global revenue of $307 billion. But for Google, India is strategically important as it is one of the world’s largest markets for consumer and enterprise digital services. And this makes the NCLAT verdict significant, which is likely to end up in Supreme Court, and bring about material changes to how its business is operated in the country.

A spokesperson for Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), the industry body representing startups that appealed to the CCI alleging unfair practices by Google, did not comment on the matter. An emailed query sent to Google also remained unanswered.