Apple is expected to face trust charges in the European Union over a competition complaint made by Spotify about App Store rules, according to reports.
Spotify had said back in March 2019 that Apple used its control over the apps featured in the App Store to limit competition against its own Apple Music service.
EU regulators opened antitrust probes into Apple in June 2020, testing the App Store and Apple Pay.
If reports come out and EU regulators claim that Apple is AAPL,
on the misuse of trust rules, it would represent the first time the tech giant has resisted such charges in the 27-ball block, as competition concerns go up across the globe.
European Commission regulators plan to unveil the charges in the coming weeks, according to a March 4 report by Reuters, which first reported the news and called sources close to the case. The report said the commission could outline Apple’s suspicious allegations of anti-trust rules in a complaints report before the summer.
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The charges would be related to a competition complaint made two years ago by the music streaming platform Spotify SPOT,
over the rules on Apple’s App Store.
Spotify also said that Apple ‘s payment system, Apple Pay, which typically cuts 30% of transactions, made it difficult for Apple Music’ s competitors to market themselves.
Trust charges against Apple in the EU would represent just the latest attempt by European regulators to get down to Big Tech’s power.
In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority on Thursday said it was looking into Apple for suspicion of breaching competition rules on the App Store, in a similar case to the one in the EU.
Read more: Apple inspected app store access with a UK regulator
Big Tech is broadly facing a special ruling in the EU that includes the ability to break up multi-billion-dollar fines and companies if they do not comply with new rules.
Apple, as well as Amazon AMZN,
Facebook FB,
and Google, with Alphabet GOOGL,
they will fall under the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, presented by the European Commission in December 2020 and awaiting approval from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. These acts aim to keep technology platforms at a high level above the content they host, and introduce new pro-competition measures for online marketplaces.
Apple declined to comment, but noted its response to Spotify’s complaint from 2019. At the time, Apple explained, among other things, how the App Store has enabled hundreds of millions of downloads of the Spotify app.