Apple’s US lawsuit is not the first legal hassle for iPhone maker

Apple has found itself caught in a legal tangle, with the US government suing the California-based tech giant for allegedly monopolising the smartphone market and stifling competition.

The maker of the iconic iPhone, Apple has faced other legal headaches, including woes in Europe.

Here are a few other recent legal battles that have hit the tech company:

Spotify and European regulators

On March 4, the European Commission fined Apple over €1.8 billion (almost $2 billion) for preventing competition from music streaming rivals through its App Store, which regulators said had restrictions which are “illegal under EU antitrust rules”.

This comes after Swedish music streaming platform Spotify filed a complaint in 2019 over restrictions imposed by the iPhone maker, including Apple’s 30 percent fee to use the App Store.

“For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store,” said Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice president in charge of competition policy.

“They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.”

Longstanding clash with Epic Games

In 2020, video game developer Epic Games, the maker of the popular online game Fortnite, sued Apple, accusing the tech company of operating a monopoly that squashes competition, mainly through its restriction of third-party apps and game marketplaces on iOS devices.

Though a US district judge ruled that Apple did not have a monopoly in mobile gaming and rejected the antitrust claims against it, the court found the company to have violated California’s unfair competition law by prohibiting developers from telling users about other payment methods.

Last April, the US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the court’s decision, which found that the video game publisher had "failed to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive alternatives" to Apple's system.

In January, the US Supreme court declined to take up the challenge by Apple to the lower court’s decision that requires Apple to change certain rules like allowing app developers to provide users with other methods of payments for digital content used in their apps.

On March 6, Apple blocked Epic Games from launching its own online marketplace on iPhones and iPads in Europe, a day before the EU’s Digital Market Act (DMA), which allows third-party app stores and alternative payments on IOS, went into effect.

Apple reversed the decision two days later following an inquiry from the European Commission.

“I take note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion,” said Commissioner Thierry Breton in a post on X, adding, “From Day 2, #DMA is already showing very concrete results!”

France

In March 2020, antitrust authorities in France levied a €1.2 billion fine on Apple for what it described as anti-competitive behaviour within its distribution and retail network.

The French Competition Authority, the national competition regulator, said that Apple took advantage of retail premium resellers or outside resellers’ economic dependency on the tech company.

"First, Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilising the wholesale market for Apple products," said Isabelle de Silva, president of the French Competition Authority.

"Secondly, so-called Premium distributors could not risk promoting or lowering prices without risk, which led to an alignment of retail prices between Apple's integrated distributors and independent Premium distributors."

It also fined two Apple wholesalers, €76.1 million for Tech Data and €62.9 million for Ingram Micro. This was the largest penalty handed down in one case, totalling €1.24 billion euros.

In 2022, the fine was reduced by two-thirds to €372 million by the Paris Court of Appeal after an appeal by Apple.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) ruled in 2021 that Apple had violated Dutch competition laws in the dating app market. It also said Apple would have to allow developers of dating apps, to use third-party payment processors.

Apple was fined €5 million a week, a figure which eventually totalled to €50 million during the period it failed to comply.

In June 2022, Apple reportedly said developers of dating apps offered in the Netherlands would be given a slight discount on commissions for sales made outside of its in-app system, reducing its fee to 27 percent, from the usual 30 percent.

Spain

In July 2023, Spain’s antitrust watchdog, the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) imposed a €143.6 million fine on Apple for breaching competition rules.

It also fined Amazon €50.5 million for similar reasons, saying both companies had “unreasonably” restricted the number of resellers of Apple products on Amazon’s website in Spain.

"The two companies restricted without justification the number of sellers of Apple products on the Amazon website in Spain," the CNMC said.

Britain

Around the same time last year, on July 25, more than 1,500 app developers in the UK filed a £785 million class action lawsuit against Apple over app store fees.

The lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal was brought upon by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the OECD, on behalf of the more than 1,000 app developers.

"Apple's charges to app developers are excessive and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads," Ennis said in a statement.

"The charges are unfair in their own right, and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers."