PARIS: French antitrust regulators have accused Google of failing to comply with the competition authority’s orders on how to conduct negotiations with news publishers over copyright.

A report by the investigators said Google’s failure to comply was of an exceptionally serious nature and follows complaints by French news publishers that Google failed to hold talks with them in good faith.

The same publishers were not part of the US$76 million three-year deal recently signed between the US company and a group of 121 publications.