NEW DELHI - Two junior Indian antitrust research associates and a law school student were behind a complaint that sparked a probe into Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices in the country, in what has become another regulatory challenge for the U.S. firm.
The case was filed by Umar Javeed and Sukarma Thapar, who work as research associates at the CCI, and Umar’s brother Aaqib, a law school student who interned with the CCI briefly in 2018, their LinkedIn profiles showed. All three declined interview requests for this article. In the latest case, the three young informants relied on the European Commission’s order from last year in which Google was fined $5 billion for forcing manufacturers to pre-install its apps on Android devices. Their complaint is against both Google LLC and the company’s India unit.
adityakalra