Apple is set to face fresh antitrust charges in Brussels next week over the way it restricts rivals from accessing its mobile payment system, as the EU sets up its latest challenge to the market power of the world’s most valuable company.
The tech giant will be accused of breaking EU law in the way it operates Apple Pay, a payments system that operates on hundreds of millions of iPhone devices, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The $2.5tn company would receive heavy fines worth up to 10 per cent of global turnover if the charges are upheld.
Investigators, led by the bloc’s powerful competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, will accuse Apple of unfairly blocking groups such as PayPal and leading banks from accessing its mobile wallet system.
The move signals how the EU has become the centre of a global regulatory crackdown against Big Tech, with groups such as Google and Facebook having regularly been in the crosshairs of antitrust authorities in recent years.
The case, which was opened in 2020, is one of many investigations opened in Brussels against Apple, which had not faced antitrust charges from the EU before last year. In two other cases, investigators are probing whether Apple is harming competition in the books and music streaming services within its App Store.
The charges expected to be announced next week relate to the NFC — or “near field communication” — technology that allows a user to pay by tapping their iPhone on a payments terminal. That personal device is linked to debit or credit cards through a mobile wallet.
Under the current system, Apple must approve third parties to process payments through its mobile system, saying it would breach the security and privacy of its users.
The timing of the EU’s announcement of charges could still slip, people close to the investigation warned, but added that the commission was determined to act soon.
The EU has also approved two pieces of landmark legislation in recent weeks designed to tackle the world’s biggest technology companies. They are the Digital Services Act, a law that will increase the responsibilities that digital platforms have over policing illegal content online, and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is designed to curb the market power of Big Tech groups.
EU lawmakers were subject to an aggressive lobbying effort from tech companies including Apple over the laws in a doomed effort to weaken the measures.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, earlier this month criticised the DMA and the growing regulatory backlash it has faced around the world.
“Policymakers are taking steps in the name of competition that would force Apple to let apps on the iPhone that circumvent the App Store through a process called sideloading,” he said. “That means data-hungry companies would be able to avoid our privacy rules, and once again track our users against their will.”
The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, declined to comment. Apple declined to comment.
