An Indian court has ordered Apple to cooperate with the country’s competition watchdog in an ongoing antitrust case over the App Store, although it declined to stay the proceedings entirely. Here are the details.
Apple denied pause in Indian App Store antitrust investigation
As frequent 9to5Mac readers know, Apple has been embroiled in an antitrust dispute with India’s competition watchdog over the App Store, and the fight is increasingly focused on how much access regulators should have to the company’s global financial data.
Earlier this month, accused apple the Competition Commission of India (CCI) of overstepping its judicial authority after the watchdog issued an ultimatum requiring the company to present its financial information.
Of Reuters:
After the CCI this month gave Apple an ultimatum to submit its financial statements and scheduled a final hearing for May 21, the company urged the Delhi High Court to urgently intervene to stay the matter.
At the center of this aspect of the dispute is Apple’s disagreement with India’s updated competition law, which allows potential penalties to be calculated based on a company’s global turnover, rather than just its local revenue.
Apple has been challenging that sanctions framework in court and, as part of that fight, has also sought to halt the underlying ICC App Store proceedings while challenging the legality of the law itself.
Meanwhile, the regulator has accused Apple of repeatedly seeking extensions and delaying the case while resisting demands to produce the financial information the ICC says it needs to move forward.
After that back-and-forth, the Delhi High Court has told Apple to “fully cooperate” with the ICC proceedings. The court did not grant Apple’s request to stop the case, although it did prevent the regulator from issuing a final decision before the case returned to court on July 15.
The court also allowed Apple to search certain documents (without identifying them in the order), likely as part of its broader challenge to India’s antitrust sanctions framework.
You can read the court’s full decision below:
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