Apple-Spotify case: EU slaps over Rs 16,000 crore fine on tech giant; Check details

Apple was issued its first ever EU antitrust fine worth Rs 16,169 crore (over $1.95 billion) on Monday, news agency Reuters reported. The tech behemoth paid a punishment for preventing Spotify and other music streaming services from alerting customers to alternatives for making payments except Apple’s App Store.

The Swedish music streaming provider Spotify filed a complaint in 2019 about the aforementioned limitation and Apple’s 30% app store fees, which prompted the European Commission to decide to issue the penalties.

The European Union competition regulator stated that Apple’s restrictions were considered unfair trading conditions, marking a relatively novel argument in an antitrust case.

The Dutch antitrust commission used this same argument against Apple in a 2021 ruling involving dating app providers. Furthermore, the EU competition agency stated that, in order to discourage Apple, it levied an extra lump payment of Rs 16,188 crore (1.8 billion euros) on top of the base amount.

This decision was made because a major portion of the harm caused by Apple’s actions was non-monetary. However, the regulator did not specify the exact basic amount.

“Apple misused its market dominance for ten years in the music streaming app distribution business by operating the App Store. They achieved this by limiting developers’ ability to tell users about less expensive music services that are accessible outside of the Apple ecosystem.

This is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement as mentioned in the report.