The Department of Justice (DOJ) and attorneys from 16 states and the District of Columbia filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, alleging that the tech giant has created a monopoly for the iPhone.
The 88-page lawsuit claims that Apple is in violation of antitrust laws and has engaged in behavior that makes customers reliant on the iPhone. They also claim to have garnered evidence to show it prevented competitors from advertising apps that compete with Apple software such as its digital wallet.
The government argued that Apple’s practices have disadvantaged customers, hurt smaller companies, and could diminish the value of the iPhone.
BREAKING: The Justice Department announces Apple antitrust suit, accusing tech giant of stifling competition. pic.twitter.com/kxQA5SbEvq
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 21, 2024
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This follows from years of antitrust probing into Apple under the Biden administration, which have largely culminated in this present case.
The suit, filed in federal court in the state of New Jersey, claims Apple “engage[d] in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct” through its alleged monopolization of the smartphone market. “Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly,” the attorneys said in the suit, adding that it has led to “higher prices and less innovation.”
“Apple has locked its consumers into the iPhone while locking its competitors out of the market,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
Earlier this month, the European Union fined Apple roughly $2 billion for exploiting its “dominant position” in the market of music streaming. Specifically, they claimed that music apps had to pay Apple a 30 percent fee on each subscription they received from an Apple app store user, a cost that was then passed onto the consumer. The only way around this was if the user paid for the subscription through the developers’ websites, but Apple allegedly prevented developers from letting their users know this cheaper option was available.
This was the first time the EC has placed a deterrent fee on top of an antitrust fine, far surpassing the 500-million-euro price tag insider sources had anticipated. The antitrust fine was just 40 million euros (which the European Competition Commissioner described as a “parking ticket”), while the deterrent fee was 1.8 billion euros, equal to about 0.5 percent of Apple’s global net revenue of $383 billion.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics, economics, and culture for Valuetainment. Follow Shane on X (Twitter).
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