The full ruling outlines the EU’s 500 million euro fine against Apple
Apple has a month left to make its App Store rules compliant with EU Digital Markets Act antisteering provisions, or the fines will keep coming.
On April 23, following multiple reports that the EU was delaying the issuing of fines against Apple and Meta, Europe finally pulled the trigger. It announced that it would fine Apple and Meta millions of euros for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act.
Over a month later, on May 27, the European Commission published its full ruling on the matter. The 67-page document also outlines exactly what the punishment is to Apple, for failing to follow the regulation.
The bottom line is that Apple was fined 500 million euro ($567 million), with Apple being given three months to pay it to the European Commission. If it doesn’t pay on time, it will have to pay interest on the due funds.
Apple also has to fix itself and end the non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act within 60 days of the April notification. If Apple does not, it faces the prospect of “periodic penalty payments” of an unspecified amount until it does comply.
Non-compliant anti-steering
The ruling covers how Apple is not complying with the DMA based on how its anti-steering rules are implemented. Originally, Apple prevented developers from telling consumers about ways to make payments for services and features that didn’t go through Apple’s systems.
Apple did change its rules under regulatory pressure, but did so in a way that didn’t meet the requirements of the Digital Markets Act. These changes included allowing developers to share an external link with users, but with limitations.
Since Apple wouldn’t get its 30% cut for usage of its In-App Purchases mechanism, Apple added a new requirement, effectively taking a 27% fee from these transactions outside of the App Store system.
In its ruling, neither the old nor new business terms complied with the regulation, since they restricted the ability for developers to promote their off-App Store offers in their apps. Forcing a fee instead of doing so free of charge was also seen as an issue, as is limiting links to one URL per app.
Repeatedly, Apple’s arguments are denied in the ruling, such as its definition of “free” as its read in the regulation when taking into account nuances in different languages.
As for the fine, Apple argued that it should not be fined at all, due to the relative novelty of the regulation and taking into account Apple’s “good faith efforts to engage” with the European Commission.
“None of Apple’s arguments for not imposing a fine, or for reducing the fine, are convincing,” the ruling reads.
Awaiting appeal
While the final ruling’s publication in full seemingly brings to an end legal action that started back in May 2024, that’s far from the reality of the situation. Like many other high-stakes lawsuits, the appeals process will take years to conclude.
Apple said at the time of the original ruling that it will appeal against the fine. Apple also took the opportunity to accuse the EU of discriminating against it, and of requiring Apple to hand over its technology to rival companies for free.
It is unclear if Apple has formally appealed, nor if Apple has made its 500 million euro payment.
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