Apple may be facing a fine of roughly $539 million (500 million euros) from the EU and a ban on its alleged anti-competitive App Store practices for music streaming services, according to FT. The publication, which cites five unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, reports that the European Commission will announce its ruling early next month.
The probe stems from a 2019 antitrust complaint filed by Spotify and is focused on App Store rules that at the time prevented developers from directing customers to alternative subscription options outside the app, which could be cheaper as they wouldn’t have to compensate for Apple’s 30 percent fee. Apple later loosened these restrictions. According to FT, the Commission will say Apple broke EU antitrust law and created “unfair trading conditions” for its rivals with the App Store’s “anti-steering obligations.”
