The Dutch competition watchdog ACM announced on Monday that it had rejected Apple’s challenges to fines of 50 million euros ($53 million) it imposed on the business for disobeying directives to curb Apple’s App Store’s dominating position.
The ACM claimed that while Apple had mostly agreed with its requests to make its App Store available to alternate ways of payment for dating applications in the Netherlands, it had not satisfied a third, unspecified condition of the terms linked to the fines.
In a 2021 decision, the ACM found that Apple had breached Dutch competition laws in the market for dating applications and ordered Apple to permit the use of third-party payment processors by dating app developers.
It eventually fined Apple 50 million euros for the time it disobeyed, or 5 million euros per week.
Apple disputed these sanctions, claiming that the regulator had misdefined the pertinent markets and had exaggerated Apple’s dominance in the dating app industry.
“We disagree with the ACM’s original order, which degrades investment incentives and is not in the best interests of our users’ privacy or data security,” Apple responded.
Apple’s arguments were all rejected by the agency in a July 13, 2023 judgement that was released on Monday.
“As the ACM has denied our administrative appeal, we will appeal to the Netherlands courts.” Apple tacked on.
If Apple prevailed in court, the ACM promised to publish the portion of the proceedings that had not yet been made public.
