Apple has appealed the €500 million fine imposed by the European Commission in April for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Apple argues that the fine shows that the European Union is acting unfairly and discriminatorily against US-based companies. The company has also been criticized for the unclear and constantly changing DMA rules.

Apple appeals the €500 million fine

The Cupertino-based technology giant made an official statement on the subject; “We have filed an appeal today because the European Commission’s decision and this unprecedented fine go far beyond what the law requires. As we will show in our appeal, the European Commission is interfering in how we operate our store and is imposing confusing and unfavourable business conditions for developers. We have implemented these practices to avoid punitive daily fines and will share the facts with the court.” You can read the details of the appeal against the €500 million lawsuit below.

The European Commission has accepted that a Store Fee can be charged for the ongoing provision of App Store services to developers and has supported this concept. In response, we announced a single Store Service Fee last August.

However, the European Commission later stated that this Store Service Fee, which had already been reduced, should be tiered, meaning that developers should pay a lower fee if they do not want certain services. This has led to a more complex choice structure for both developers and users. To our knowledge, no other app store uses such a tiered model.

The European Commission also decided which services should be optional, forcing the removal of some features, such as discovery and search, from the mandatory service package.

Last year, we allowed developers to advertise digital goods and services offers within apps and direct EU users to complete these transactions on an external website instead of through the In-App Purchase (IAP) system. This practice has long been known in the industry as “redirection”. We also gave developers the option to offer alternative payment service providers within apps instead of IAP.

However, we believe that the Commission’s latest instructions to Apple have unlawfully broadened the definition of redirection under Article 5(4):

• Redirection is no longer just external linking, but also includes the promotion of offers within apps, such as alternative payment provider promotions or in-app web views.
• They also asked us to include linking to competing app stores and third-party apps distributed through these stores.
• These changes fundamentally change the definition of redirection as set out in the law and, in our view, go beyond the legal limits.