It’s all heating up in the European Union (and outside it, since that’s how we have to describe the UK now) around Spotify’s anticompetition complaints about Apple.
Reuters reported yesterday that the EU’s antitrust regulators are “finalising a charge sheet against Apple” sparked by Spotify’s complaint to the European Commission in March 2019.
The story doesn’t offer any more details of what that charge sheet may contain, but it does suggest that it “may” be sent to Apple before the summer.
There is clearly some briefing going on here, since the Financial Times ran the same line from its own sources among ‘people familiar with the case’. “It could still be months before formal charges are brought against Apple, and that the case could still be shelved,” it caveated.
In separate news, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching an investigation into “whether Apple has a dominant position in connection with the distribution of apps on Apple devices in the UK – and, if so, whether Apple imposes unfair or anti-competitive terms on developers”. This isn’t specifically about Spotify, although the streaming service has – unsurprisingly – welcomed the CMA’s announcement.
Image by Laurenz Heymann/Unsplash
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