EU regulators reportedly plan to fine Apple more than $500 million in antitrust probe
European regulators reportedly plan to fine Apple more than $500 million, saying it unfairly hindered its music streaming rivals.
The Financial Times and Bloomberg News reported Sunday that the European Commission’s antitrust regulator is preparing to impose a fine of about 500 million euros ($539 million) on Apple AAPL.
After finding that it had created an anti-competitive environment by not informing iPhone users that alternative, cheaper music streaming apps were available outside of the App Store.
This survey includes Spotify SA SPOT,
While EU regulators have previously imposed large antitrust fines on tech giants such as Google’s Alphabet GOOGL;
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and Microsoft Corp. MSFT,
There have been no antitrust fines levied against Apple.
The FT reported that the fines are expected to be announced in early March.
Apple declined to comment Sunday, but referred to a previous statement saying, “The App Store has helped Spotify become the leading music streaming service across Europe, and we hope the European Commission will end its pursuit of meritless complaints.”
Meanwhile, the FT and Bloomberg report that the European Commission is close to accepting Apple’s settlement in a separate antitrust lawsuit over its Apple Pay system.
