EU to investigate Apple Pay, App Store over alleged violation of competition rules

Apple Inc is facing two EU antitrust investigations into its App Store and Apple Pay as regulators said terms and conditions might have violated competition rules of bloc. European Competition Commissioner Margre Vestr said in a statement that Apple appears to have obtained a “gatekeeper” role when it comes to distribution of apps and content to users of Apple's popular devices.

Swedish music streaming service Spotify h filed a complaint against tech giant for mandatory use of Apple's in-app purchase system and restrictions put on developers' ability to inform iPhone and iP users of or cheaper purchasing possibilities. A similar grievance related to e-books and audiobooks has been filed by ar rival.

Record fine for anti-competitive behaviour

Recently, France’s competition authority has slapped a record fine of 1.1 billion euros on Apple Inc. for anti-competitive behaviour within its distribution network. two wholesalers Tech Data and Ingram Micro have also been penalised with 76.1 million euros and 62.9 million euros for one of cartel practices.

“Apple h committed an abuse of ecomic dependence on its premium retailers, a practice which Authority considers to be particularly serious,” said Isabelle de Silva, he of authority in a statement.

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In 2012, a distributor of high-end specialized Apple products complained about uncompetitive practices followed by raids carried out at hequarters of Apple and its wholesalers in 2017. Isabelle said that Apple and its two wholesalers h agreed t to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each or, reby sterilizing wholesale market for Apple products.

he of authority concluded that “so-called Premium distributors” could t safely carry out promotions or lower prices, which led to an alignment of retail prices between Apple's integrated distributors and independent Premium distributors. Isabelle said that Apple has abused ecomic dependence of se Premium distributors on it, by subjecting m to unfair and unfavourable commercial conditions compared to its network of integrated distributors.

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(Im: AP)