The US government sued Apple on Thursday, alleging that the tech juggernaut illegally maintained a monopoly for the iPhone by limiting competition and imposing exorbitant pricing on consumers, the latest in a line of legal difficulties for the company.
Epic Games, a video game publisher, has been scouring the courts and approaching the authorities for several years to force Apple and Google to open up their mobile operating systems, iOS and Android, which are installed on the vast majority of smartphones, to stores so that alternative applications can be downloaded.
A US federal judge instructed Apple two years ago to allow publishers to give alternate payment ways to consumers, while ruling that Epic had failed to prove a violation of competition law.
However, Epic, backed by other internet titans like Microsoft and Meta, accused Apple of failing to comply with the ruling, according to the wording of a collective initiative document submitted to a California court on 20 March.
Apple has proposed a solution that would allow it to get between 12 and 27 percent of the revenue from transactions made outside of its store, which is only a minor reduction from what it charges on its App Store.
Epic Games has dragged Apple (and Google) to court in Australia over similar complaints. The move began Monday and is anticipated to last five months.
After music streaming firm Spotify filed a case with the European Commission, the latter fined Apple 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) on March 4 for restricting European users from seeing information about alternative, cheaper music streaming services.
Brussels believes Apple imposed limits to prevent application developers from marketing “alternative and cheaper offers outside the Apple ecosystem” to iPhone and iPad customers in order to boost its own service, Apple Music.
Apple has decided to appeal the decision.
The situation has became more complicated for the corporation since 7 March, when Europe’s “Digital Markets Act” regulation went into effect. This unprecedented legislative arsenal compels the world’s six top firms, including Apple, to open up their platforms to competition.
Fined 1.1B euros
Apple has stated that European customers will soon be able to download apps directly from websites.
In 2020, the French Competition Authority ordered Apple to pay a record fine of 1.1 billion euros for anti-competitive activity towards French shops.
However, the Paris Court of Challenge decreased the fine by two-thirds in 2022, to 372 million euros, when Apple stated that it had the right to challenge the original judgment.
The Spanish Competition Commission levied a global fine of 194 million euros on Apple and Amazon in 2023 for anti-competitive cooperation practices in the distribution of Apple trademark products by Amazon Spain.
In 2021, the Italian similar body penalized Amazon and Apple 200 million euros for blocking access to Amazon’s platform for some Apple product retailers.
In Britain, Apple is facing another lawsuit for 785 million pounds ($995 million) over app store fees. It is claimed that the company paid third-party developers large, unjustified commissions of up to 30% on software purchases through its app store.
In January of this year, Apple was fined $13.6 million in Russia for violating competition regulations governing in-app purchases.
Last year, Apple was fined $11.1 million for allegedly exploiting its dominating position in the mobile app industry.