On April 16, 2019, CCI ordered an investigation into the
information filed by three consumers of Android based smartphones
in India, namely Mr. Umar Javeed, Ms. Sukarma Thapar and Mr. Aaqib
Javeed ('Informants') against Google LLC
and Google India Private Limited (collectively, referred to as
'Google').1 The allegations in
the information were under Section 4 of the Act and related to
Google's Android operating system, which is an open-source,
mobile operating system ('Android OS')
installed by original equipment manufacturers of smartphones and
tablets ('OEMs').
The key allegations in the information related mainly to two
agreements, i.e., the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement
('MADA'), and the Anti Fragmentation
Agreement ('AFA'), which were entered into
by the OEMs of Android OS with Google. Under the AFA, OEMs were
restricted from developing and marketing the incompatible modified
version of Android OS, Android forks, on other devices, which is
alleged