Apple is challenging the €1.8 billion antitrust fine related to a Spotify complaint

This March Apple was hit with a massive €1.8 billion fine ($2B) over a complaint initially filed by Spotify back in 2019. The complaint was simple – Apple is charging app makers a 30% tax when a user subscribes to their service for a year and 15% for subsequent years. That gave an unfair advantage to Apple Music over Spotify as the latter was forced to raise subscription costs to cover the tax.

Apple isn’t going to just pay up, though. Bloomberg reports that Apple has filed its own suit with the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg to try and overturn the hefty fine.

Apple suggests that the European Commission didn’t provide credible evidence that consumers were harmed by its App Store policies. We are no legal experts, but we don’t think that is how antitrust laws work – predatory pricing is specifically forbidden, for example. Anyway, that is something for EC and Apple lawyers to debate.

Previously, apps weren’t even allowed to advertise that users can subscribe for less money if they go through the website instead. Since then the EC has made rules that force Apple to allow app makers to advertise alternative payment methods.

Source (paywalled)