New competition law faces a litmus test in Google Play billing case

Last week, Google Play  billing policy came under the scanner of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for allegedly imposing unfair service fees on app developers. This, perhaps, is one of the first investigations ordered by the antitrust watchdog since the Competition Amendment Act 2023 was notified on February 20, with one of its highlights being the incentives to a cartel under investigation to tell on other cartels.

But we will come to that in a moment.
 

India’s competition law was originally designed for brick-and-mortar companies. It was not in tune with the digital revolution that swept across the business