Madras High Court: Madras HC grants interim relief to Disney+ Hotstar in Google Play Store billing matter

Novi Digital Leisure, a subsidiary of Disney-owned Star India, has gotten interim aid from the Madras Excessive Court docket following their plea in opposition to the Google Play Retailer’s new billing system. Novi Digital owns and operates India’s main streaming app Disney+ Hotstar.

In an interim order on Tuesday, the Madras Excessive Court docket restrained Google from delisting the Disney+ Hotstar streaming app from its official app retailer. It has additionally requested Novi Digital to pay a 4% fee to Google on the downloads by way of the Play Retailer.

Novi Digital, which is the fifteenth firm to problem the Google Play Retailer’s new billing system, moved the HC yesterday. The matter, nonetheless, got here up for a listening to right this moment. The corporate refused to touch upon the Madras HC verdict.

Earlier, Matrimony.com, Folks Interactive, Data Edge India, Arha Media and Broadcasting, Primetrace Applied sciences, Chilly Brew Tech, Mebigo Labs, Crescere Applied sciences, Verve Cell, Catchup Applied sciences, Sorting Hat Applied sciences, Alt Digital Media Leisure, Nasadiya Applied sciences, and Ananda Vikatan Digital had challenged the brand new billing coverage of Google.

Novi Digital was represented by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Satish Parasaran, who argued for the same interim association between Disney+ Hotstar and Google Play Retailer as the opposite petitioners within the case.

The Madras Excessive Court docket had handed an interim injunction directing Google to not delist apps owned by the petitioners from the Play Retailer whereas asking them to pay a 4% fee to the tech big for the app downloads.Novi Digital argued that the brand new billing coverage doesn’t give app builders sufficient choices as a result of they need to provide Google Pay as a fee choice even when they use a third-party fee gateway.”Underneath the brand new billing system, the app builders must pay an 11% price to Google Pay even when they go for a third-party fee system. Previous to the CCI order, Google Pay was the one default fee choice for app builders they usually needed to pay a 15% price,” mentioned a lawyer related with the matter.

ET had earlier reported that Google had issued a discover to Novi Digital for utilizing a non-Google Play billing system and had threatened to take away the streaming app from the Play Retailer.