Yandex And Russia's Antitrust Agency Reconcile, Here's Their Deal

JAKARTA – Russian technology giant Yandex on Wednesday, January 19 announced that it has reached a settlement agreement in a competition law dispute over search engine results with the Russian Federal Antitrust Service (FAS) and a consortium of IT companies.

FAS told Yandex in February last year that they had created unequal market conditions for the general online search service, that they were preferentially promoting their own products and asked for this to be stopped. Yandex at the time said it was ready to defend its position.

Nasdaq-listed Yandex said the settlement confirmed that it had complied with all warning requirements, ended the case without fines, and established certain additional obligations for Yandex to support competition, including sharing information with FAS.

In addition, Yandex said it would establish a joint program to support Russian technology companies in promoting their products and services, donating 1.5 billion rubles (IDR 281 billion) to the Russian Fund for Information Technology Development.

FAS said in a statement that the agreement was approved by the Moscow Court of Arbitration after all parties agreed to sign it.

Some 20 Russian internet companies also signed an open letter last year in support of FAS efforts. In it, they accused Yandex of abusing its dominant market position and urged it to establish a level playing field for fair competition in an online search.

FAS then filed an antitrust case against Yandex, saying it would investigate possible anti-competitive practices and assess the consequences.

Discord is centered around enriched search, which gives users more detailed results on searches for things like events and recipes.

Yandex said that it uses the global practice of enriched search results to improve user experience and that more than 30.000 companies use enriched search technology for free.