The tech giant fights regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, as the US government launches a grab-bag of accusations. Plus, Elon Musk’s bad day in court
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Apple’s problems have gone transatlantic. Even as it squabbles with the EU over the Digital Markets Act and nervously eyes the UK’s passage of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers bill, the company’s biggest fight is now back at home, after the US government launched what will likely be the antitrust case of the decade.
From our story:
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to “engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct”. The complaint states that the case is about “freeing smartphone markets” from Apple’s anti-competitive practices, arguing that the company has thwarted innovation to maintain market dominance.
“Apple has maintained its power not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior,” the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, stated in a press conference on Thursday. “Monopolies like Apple’s threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based.”
