France: Announced FCA precautionary measures in investigation into Google’s use of market power to allegedly circumvent the right of content renumeration for press agencies and publishers (Decision 20-MC-01)

On April 9, 2020, the French Competition Authority (FCA) issued several injunctions. This precautionary measure was taken because Google allegedly did not obey the copyright law on neighbouring rights that came into force on October 24 2019, which was put in place in an effort to favour publishers and press agencies during negotiations about the remuneration of content. Shortly after however, Google decided that it would only display content if it was made available free of charge by the publishers. As a consequence, several news agencies (SEPM, APIG, AFP) requested precautionary measures forcing Google to hold negotiations in good faith regarding the remuneration of the press' content. After investigating the matter, the Autorité de la concurrence states that Google has abused its dominance in the search engine market by unlawfully forcing publishers and news agencies to give Google their content for free. For that matter, as well as for reasons of violating the law and discrimination in general, Google is forced to obey to several injunctions that will stay enforced until the decision on the merits is published. Google is thereunder forced to negotiate with the press in a fair and transparent manner and retroactively remunerate all publishers and press agencies since the law came into force.