Long queues extracurricular flagship Apple store successful Mumbai up of iPhone 16 sale. (Image: Pradip Das/The Indian Express)
India’s antitrust assemblage has turned down a petition from Apple to enactment a clasp connected an probe study which recovered the institution breached contention laws, allowing the lawsuit to continue, an interior bid from the regulator seen by Reuters showed.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) successful August ordered a callback of probe reports aft Apple said the watchdog had disclosed commercialized secrets to competitors successful the lawsuit dating backmost to 2021, including Tinder-owner Match. These elements should person been redacted.
The CCI had asked parties to instrumentality the reports and destruct immoderate copies. The regulator past issued caller reports.
The CCI interior bid showed that Apple successful November alleged that the main complainant successful the antitrust probe – Indian non-profit Together We Fight Society (TWFS) – had not complied with the directives to springiness an assurance that the aged probe reports had been destroyed.
Apple asked the CCI “to instrumentality enactment against TWFS for non-compliance with its order” and “to withhold the revised” report, the CCI order, dated Nov. 13, seen by Reuters showed.
“Apple’s petition to clasp the probe study successful abeyance was deemed untenable,” the CCI said successful the order.
Apple did not respond to Reuters queries.
The CCI did not respond extracurricular regular concern hours connected Sunday. Calls to representatives of TWFS went unanswered.
A CCI probe had recovered that Apple exploited its ascendant presumption successful the marketplace for app stores connected its iOS operating strategy to the detriment of app developers, users and different outgo processors.
Apple has denied wrongdoing and said it is simply a tiny subordinate successful India wherever phones that usage Google’s Android strategy are dominant.
The CCI interior bid besides showed that Apple has been asked to taxable its audited fiscal statements for fiscal years 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 nether regulatory guidelines aimed astatine determining imaginable monetary penalties successful the case.
The CCI’s elder officials volition reappraisal the probe study and marque a last ruling connected the case.