The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has issued two decisions accepting Google’s commitments regarding its Google Maps Platform (GMP) services and its Google Automotive Services (GAS) offering. CRA’s European Competition team was retained by TomTom as an intervener to support the FCO in its investigation of Google’s conduct.
The CRA European team — including Mikaël Hervé, Raphaël De Coninck, Romain Bizet, and Mariam Arutyunyan — provided extensive economic evidence analysing the possible ‘theories of harm’ and the likely effects of Google’s tying and bundling conduct in Germany.
In its decisions, the FCO finds that (i) Google’s GMP Terms of Service created a de facto tie which prevented the use of Google’s Places API (i.e., Google Search) from being used in combination with a non-Google map, and that (ii) through GAS, Google has unduly restricted customer choice by bundling the automotive versions of Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play Store – none of which could be obtained separately. The latter decision shares similarities with the European Commission Android Decision, applying the same principles in Android cars to those applied by the EC in Android smartphones.
The FCO has now accepted several commitments offered by Google — together with strong anti-circumvention safeguards — which help in restoring competition in markets for maps and navigation services, as well as other markets like voice assistant and app stores.
This resolution is a prime example of how digital regulation can complement the traditional antitrust toolbox to swiftly tackle tying and bundling practices that pose a risk to competition.
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