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EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager coldly struck Google with a fine 4.3bil (RM20.4bil) last week, the heaviest penalty of the history of antitrust enforcement.
A year earlier, when the company – already under the fine of euros 2.4 billion crowns (RM 11.4 billion) in another European case – quietly tried to tune the probe in the offers he had with the Android phone makers, the answer was also cold. The Silicon Valley research giant had waited at least a year too far to address the subject of a settlement, said Vestager, 50, in an interview.
When a company wants to settle, it must "reach out immediately after" having received the initial complaint or EU Statement of Objections. "That did not happen in this case and of course she's taking the route she's now taken, Vestager said settlement negotiations, which have not been reported previously." So no surprises. "
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., was one of the largest antitrust targets in the EU, with three polls, countless headlines The company has now failed to on two occasions to strike in its shopping and Android services, which allowed him to release a total of € 6.7 billion (RM31, 8:08) Google will appeal the decision of the l 39; EU, said CEO Sundar Pichai in a blog post, "we are ready to change," he said. In the weeks following the fine of June 2017, Google's lawyers began making representations to their European counterparts to express their willingness to settle the investigation on Android, one of the flagship products of the company.
Previous attempts to initiate a conversation with the EU on ways to terminate the investigation had failed to catch fire, authorities refused to negotiate or negotiated , said people aware of the negotiations
. The California-based company's incentive to tune the Android probe was easy to see. Google offers free Android software to mobile phone manufacturers but requires them to pre-install Google apps if they want the Play Store, which offers more than a million programs.
The search giant also pays phone manufacturers, telecom operators and others. browser makers to run the Google search engine that collects user data. Through these deals, Google has captured nearly $ 50 billion (RM202bil) in annual mobile advertising sales, a third of the global market, according to the EMarketer research company.
Google executives thought that Vestager was leaving the door open when she refused to rule out a settlement at the press conference of June 27, 2017, where she announced fines in the case of shopping.
"Every case is separate," she told reporters. "And of course, I have not made any conclusions in cases that are still open." Encouraged, Google's lawyers wrote a letter in August suggesting possible changes to address EU concerns, according to people who know the discussions.
Google was ready to adjust the contracts to ease restrictions that the EU did not like. distribute applications in two different ways in the future. The letter did not go into details, only establishing a plan to start talks, according to the people, who refused to be identified because the initial conversations with the regulators were confidential.
Lawyers have never received a formal answer. officials that a regulation was no longer an option. This even prevented them from discussing whether the company would be willing to pay a fine under an agreement, people said. EU officials have not found the company. 39, convincing offer and have considered too little too late, two other people said. 19659002] Vestager said in the interview that a settlement offer should have been made in 2016, after the company received the EU's Statement of Objections, which detailed the antitrust issues with Android. The EU said the company could break the rules of competition by unfairly pushing search and navigation apps on Android phones.
This could have been the narrow window to settle the case, but Google's legal team was filming dozens of plates in 2016 To answer the accusations of Android, the investigation into Purchasing was still a top priority and News Corp. and other rivals have filed new complaints with the EU.
After the rebuff, the EU stepped up its investigation by sending an official letter. "factual letter" in November 2017, adding new evidence, two people said, there has been little substantial contact between the two parties until Google representatives discuss with officials of the EU in April at a so-called meeting on the state of the situation, which was on track.
Google was not very lucky when trying to find a way towards peace with the EU.He spent two years trying to negotiate a settlement in the shopping probe.But an agreement in principle has come under heavy fire from publishers and politicians, forcing the EU to leaving her shortly before Vestager became Commissioner in November 2014.
One of Vestager's first acts was to relaunch the Google Shopping survey, ending the botched settlement attempt. quickly accumulated a formidable reputation as a scourge of the American giants of technol She ordered Apple Inc to pay € 13bil (RM62bil) in arrears taxes and a fine of Facebook Inc. € 110mil (RM523mil) on allegations of the company induced in error regulators during a review of mergers
"Android, compared to shopping, is a case of Vestager, a non-inherited," said Nicolas Petit, visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution and law professor at the # 39, University of Liège, Belgium. "His motives for making this case the emblem of his tenure were probably higher, so the chances of a settlement were, in my opinion, lower."
The EU is not always opposed to an agreement even after a lengthy investigation. Gazprom PJSC, the nation's state-controlled gas export giant, has avoided a potentially huge penalty after seven years of investigation by agreeing in May to change its way of selling gas to the country. 39; Europe.
Google had a better time in Moscow. The Federal Antimonopoly Service fined US $ 7.8 million (RM 31.6 million) to the company as part of a settlement in April 2017 to stop an investigation. on similar concerns about Android. – Bloomberg
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