Tech giant Google has taken a step by asking the Madras High Court to dismiss the lawsuits filed by Disney+Hotstar and Testbook regarding the Google Play billing issue.
The Madras High Court has scheduled the matter for August 23rd. Disney+Hotstar and Testbook have until August 21st to respond. Until then, the temporary order from the court about Disney and Testbook’s case will continue, according to sources.
To jog your memory, Disney+Hotstar was one of the 16 companies that went to the Madras High Court seeking relief from Google’s push to make them adopt the ‘User Choice Billing’ system and agree to their updated payment policy.
Initially, the court prevented Google from removing Disney+Hotstar’s app from the Play Store and directed Google to charge the streaming service 4% of the in-app payments they received. This 4% fee is a temporary arrangement while the legal proceedings go on.
Recently, the court reminded Disney+Hotstar that it needs to pay this 4% commission to Google to maintain its interim protection in the Play Store billing case.
The Madras High Court had also asked Disney+Hotstar to provide monthly financial details so that Google could collect the fee on time.
This all began when domestic start-ups welcomed a decision by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) because Google was charging a high 30% commission for its billing system, even though the market rate was much lower, around 2% to 5%.
After the CCI’s ruling, Google extended its User Choice Billing policy to all Indian developers and updated it from April 26th. However, the service fee was still quite high at 26%, only dropping by 4 percentage points from its previous policy.
The Madras High Court protected these app developers temporarily by preventing Google from taking their apps off the Play Store, as long as they paid 4% of their monthly revenue to Google.
Google, however, filed applications with the Madras High Court to reject various commercial suits, arguing lack of jurisdiction. On August 3rd, 2023, the court ruled in Google’s favor, dismissing 14 of the app developers’ suits and their interim protection. The court stated that the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India.
As for Disney+Hotstar and Testbook, their cases are still pending final orders from the Madras High Court among the total of 16 cases.