A team from EPAM’ Competition Law and Litigation practices successfully defended the interests of Russia’s largest IT company Yandex in a dispute with Google at the Court of Appeal. The Court upheld the judgment of the Court of First Instance, in accordance with which Google now must comply with the ruling of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).

Google was instructed to pay a fine of RUB 438 million and to comply with the ruling issued by FAS, which includes the following stipulations: Google must uncouple the Google Play app store from other services, including search functions, remove restrictions on the installation of apps by other developers from agreements with mobile device manufacturers, and notify Android device users of the need to remove the company’s pre-installed apps and change the default search engine.

The team advising Yandex was made up of Counsel Evgeny Bolshakov, Senior Associate Oleg Bouiko, and Associates Oxana Akhmedova and Alexander Kiselev, under the supervision of Partner and Head of Competition Law Practice Natalia Korosteleva and Partner Denis Arkhipov.