Russia Slaps Fine on Google Over Failure to Comply With Antitrust Ruling

Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on Wednesday said it fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,900) for failing to comply with its ruling on ending the US giant's abuses of the applications market.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – FAS seeks to fine Google for violating the country’s antitrust rules on the pre-installed mobile applications market. The case was launched after a complaint by Google’s local rival Yandex. The antitrust watchdog has accused the US giant of using delaying tactics but failing to comply as well as failing to pay its multibillion-dollar fine.

"FAS has found Google Inc. and Google Ireland Limited to be guilty of an administrative offense over the failure to fulfill a ruling. The department has fined both companies 500,000 rubles. Earlier, the regulator rejected Google's request to postpone the deadline of compliance with the ruling," the service said in a statement.

Each company has been fined separately, with the total fine thus coming to almost $16,000, according to FAS.

Google has yet to pay the $6.9-million fine for its malpractices. The violations included pre-installing a number of its apps along with Google Play, as well as precluding the installation of apps made by other companies.

The FAS ruling has been confirmed by two arbitration courts. The service ordered Google to stop the violations by December 18, 2015. The final deadline expired in late August.

Google has filed three lawsuits against FAS as of early September and asked FAS to extend the terms of implementing the ruling, a request turned down by the service. The first hearing will be held by the Moscow City Arbitration Court on December 1 while the main hearing is due on December 8.