Google Play Billing System Case Enters The Filing Stage.

Jakarta (30/11) – The Indonesia Competition Commission (ICC), through the Commission Meeting on November 29, 2023, has decided that Investigation No. 08/DH/KPPU.Lid.I/IX/2022 concerning Alleged Violation of Law No. 5 of 1999 related to Abuse of Dominant Position in the Implementation of Google Play Billing System is continued to the Filing stage. In this case, Google LLC is suspected of violating Article 17 and Article 25 of Law No. 5 Year 1999 because it requires companies that distribute their applications through the Google Play Store to use the Google Play Billing System and sanctions non-compliance by removing the application from the Google Play Store. The filing stage is a series of activities carried out by the ICC to compile reports of alleged violations to assess the feasibility of the results of the investigation before proceeding with the preliminary examination by the Commission Assembly.

For information, the ICC has started an investigation based on an initiative on alleged violations of Law No. 5/1999 committed by Google LLC and its subsidiaries in Indonesia since September 14, 2022, for alleged abuse of dominant position, conditional sales, and discriminatory practices in the digital distribution of applications in Indonesia. In the course of the investigation, Google LLC submitted a request for change of conduct on June 13, 2023, and amended the request for change of conduct on July 11, 2023. The request for a change of behavior at the investigation stage is possible, based on Article 81 of ICC Regulation Number 2 of 2023. For this reason, ICC conducted a series of analyses on the letter of request for a change of behavior by Google LLC, particularly on the relationship between the points of the proposed change of behavior and the potential for abuse of dominant position and unfair business competition in the future.

On October 30, 2023, the ICC sent a letter approving the change of behavior with the addition or improvement of conditions written in the Statement of Change of Behavior. The letter contains commitment points that must be carried out by Google LLC within a predetermined period of time, namely November 24, 2023. However, until the specified deadline, Google LLC was unable to fulfill two commitments in the form of a statement letter from Google LLC to not commit anti-competitive behavior and abuse of dominant position, as well as a statement letter of change of behavior signed by the head of Google LLC.

Based on this, the ICC concluded that the Reported Party did not carry out behavior change, so the process of monitoring behavior change was stopped and the investigation proceeded to the filing stage.