Apple has launched a legal challenge against the 1.8 billion euro ($1.95 billion) fine assessed by the European Commission for breaking competition laws and unfairly favoring its own music streaming service over rivals including Spotify.
According to court records, the U.S. tech giant filed an appeal with the EU’s Luxembourg-based General Court earlier this month.
Details of what is contained in the legal action, listed as: “Apple and Apple Distribution International v Commission,” are not yet publicly available. Representatives of Apple and the European Commission did not respond to requests to comment. Apple had previously said it would appeal the EU’s fine, which was handed down in March following a long-running investigation triggered by complaints from Swedish streaming service Spotify.
At the time of the ruling, the European Commission’s Margrethe Vestager said Apple had “abused its dominant position” for almost a decade by restricting rival music streaming apps from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the App Store. As a result, many users paid “significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions” because of the high fee imposed by Apple on developers, which was then passed on to users, the commission said. Apple has always strongly denied those claims, arguing that EU investigators had failed “to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm.
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