India Judge Accepts Google’s Confidentiality Request

India’s antitrust watchdog has agreed to Google’s request to keep confidential some information the company provided during an investigation into its business, though the regulator denied allegations it leaked a report on the probe to the media, a judge said on Monday.

Google sued the Competition Commission of India (CCI) at a New Delhi court last week, urging a judge to direct the watchdog to prevent leaks of information.

The filing came after The Times of India and Reuters reported this month, citing a confidential CCI report, that the regulator’s probe had found that the US tech giant abused the dominant position of its Android operating system in India, unfairly using its “huge financial muscle” to hurt competitors.

Google, in its 188-page court filing seen by Reuters, stated it was aggrieved by the CCI’s rejection of its request, made before the media reports, that “highly business sensitive information” it had provided to the regulator during the course of the investigation be kept confidential.

On Monday, September 27, Justice Rekha Palli said the CCI had agreed to accept Google’s request to keep its submissions confidential, without elaborating on the details of the agreement between the watchdog and the company.

If Google “still has a grievance that any information is being leaked”, it can seek legal recourse, Justice Palli added.

However the justice said CCI had rejected as untrue Google’s allegations that it had leaked any information to the media.

On Friday, in a near hour-long showdown in court, Google had called the CCI a “habitual offender” in terms of leaking confidential information. The watchdog’s counsel repeatedly denied the allegations, and accused the US company of frustrating the investigative process.

Google’s filing to the court, reviewed by Reuters, said the publication of the investigation report’s findings caused “irreversible damage” to its reputation.

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