Report from Reuters
In Brief – The European Commission’s antitrust regulators are reportedly preparing to accept Apple’s latest proposal to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) on App Store rules and fees. The Commission announced in April that they were fining Apple €500 million for failing to allow app developers to freely steer consumers to alternative buying channels outside the Apple ecosystem. The company proposed various App Store regimes to comply with the DMA and eventually filed an appeal to the European General Court. The latest plan will have app developers paying a 20% commission for user purchases made through the App Store, with a 13% rate under Apple’s small-business program. Developers who steer iPhone customers to make purchases outside of the App Store will pay commissions of between 5% and 15%, and there will not be limitations on developer links to outside forms of payments.
Context – Large app developers are years into a global campaign against Apple. Although complaints, such as Epic Games’ in US court, Spotify’s to the European Commission, and Match’s to the Dutch competition authority, were technically about payments processing and anti-steering rules, the real issue has always been Apple’s fee level of 30%. If Apple reaches an agreement with the Commission, it might resolve concerns of national competition regulators in Europe. But it might not. The Dutch regulator said they would delay their decision pending the Commission’s DMA work, but the Spanish regulator recently announced an expansion of their App Store investigation. Apple’s US rules and fees are tied up in the litigation morass created by Epic’s antitrust lawsuit, which failed under federal law but prevailed under California law. Apple is now challenging Federal District Judge Rogers’ nationwide injunction on App Store rules based on the Supreme Court’s recent ruling limiting some nationwide injunctions by district judges. In the UK, Apple’s mobile ecosystem is being pulled into the new DMCC regulatory regime and Japan is proceeding in a similar direction. Google’s app store is facing similar pressures in the same markets.