Apple and the EU are now at war, as Spotify case results in $2 billion fine.
The Commission whacks Apple with a €1.84 billion fine for that streaming-subscriptions-information thing, of which only €40 million is the actual core fine—the maximum allowed by the EU’s existing antitrust law. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager says the extra $1.8 billion is intended to “account for the non-monetary harm caused to consumers and to achieve deterrence,” both for Apple and other Big Tech firms. Apple also must remove the so-called anti-steering provisions at the heart of the case. Apple says it will appeal, and issues a statement attacking Spotify for “coordinating with the European Commission,” while also complaining that the Commission is trying to “enforce the DMA before the DMA becomes law.”
It’s not like Apple and Vestager haven’t clashed before—she’s still appealing against the reversal of an earlier decision that would have put Apple on the hook for over $14 billion in Irish back taxes. But as for what we’re now witnessing, yes, it’s war. So what happens next?
After the DMA takes effect on Thursday, the Commission will probably start paving the way for charges against Apple over its new “core technology fee.” I think there’s a strong likelihood of this given that the DMA demands “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory general conditions of access” for businesses offering their services on iPhones, and some of the biggest names in tech are urging the Commission to reject Apple’s idea of DMA compliance. In her comments on today’s Spotify case decision, Vestager said her team would “carefully look” into the matter.
It isn’t that Apple is the good guy here because the bigger the company has gotten, the more it acts like a bully. But the EU is arguably much worse. Now that Brussels has legislated tech innovation nearly out of existence, the EU uses regulation to punish innovative tech firms from this side of the Atlantic.