The US Department of Justice (DoJ) could file a lawsuit against Apple for monopoly violations on Thursday. As a report by the financial news agency Bloomberg says, the process that the United States Department of Justice in Washington has been pursuing since 2019 is now about to be submitted to the responsible federal court. The DoJ lawyers believe that Apple is breaking US competition law because the company withholds certain software and hardware functions of the iPhone from its competitors.
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investigation for five years
The filing of the lawsuit would be the culmination of an extensive investigation by the DOJ antitrust watchdogs against Apple. This includes, among other things, the App Store and the mandatory commissions there of 15 and 30 percent respectively. In the EU, Apple had already made changes due to the Digital Markets Act and now allows third-party app stores; in its home country, external payment services have recently been able to be integrated. The DoJ had also filed lawsuits against Google, Meta and Amazon in the past for abusing their market power.
This isn't the first time Apple has been sued by the DoJ. It is the third time that the Justice Department has taken action against Apple for antitrust violations in the last 14 years. What is new, however, is that the company is accused of “illegally maintaining” its dominant market position, as the lawsuit apparently states. The investigation began under US President Donald Trump, but the DoJ's competition law department initially decided to focus on Google, against which two lawsuits are pending.
Defeats in the European Union
In the EU, Apple was recently hit with a fine of 1.8 billion euros because the company is said to have slowed down Spotify – among other things by banning it from providing price information in its app in order to inform users of its own tariffs. Apple wants to take action against the decision, but recently ignored Spotify's request to implement the regulation straight away.
Apple is also suspected of not implementing the DMA the way the EU wants. Competition Commissioner Vestager is currently looking at whether Apple's new “Core Technology Fee” for developers is legal.
(bsc)