SUMMARY
The move comes six months after CCI ordered a probe into Apple’s operations
An informant, via Together We Fight Society, had alleged that Apple uses a barrage of anti-competitive restraints
Similar to Apple, tech companies such as Google, Amazon and Zomato are under the CCI lens for anticompetitive practices
Apple and its associate company Apple Distribution International (ADI) have requested the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to provide relevant case documents to the tech giant.
According to an ET report, Apple has asked the CCI to give the report that a Rajasthan-based informant submitted to CCI against Apple and ADI, alleging abuse of dominant position by the company.
“CCI will take a call on whether or not to provide the documents at this stage based on the merits of the case,” ET quoted a source.
The move comes six months after CCI ordered a probe into Apple’s operations over alleged unfair business practices pertaining to its app store policies.
The order was based on the plea by the Together We Fight (TWF) Society. TWF Society had alleged that Apple uses a barrage of anti-competitive restraints and abuse of dominant practices in markets. The plea alleged unfair practices for distribution of applications to users of smart mobile phones and tablets and processing of consumers’ payments for digital content used within iOS mobile apps.
It also stated that Apple imposed unreasonable and unlawful restraints on app developers from reaching users of its mobile devices unless they go through the App Store.
As such, denial of market access for the potential app distributors or app store developers is in violation of competition norms. Thus, CCI, prima facie undertook an investigation of the operations of the US-based smartphone giant.
It is to be noted that CCI is currently probing quite a handful of tech companies including Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, Google, WhatsApp, and more for alleged abuse of their market dominance and unfair competition practices.
In a case similar to Apple, CCI is also investigating Google’s Play Store policies, since Google had announced to charge a 30% cut on all transactions for developers selling apps and other digital goods using the Google Play Store and its in-app payment systems.
CCI found Google removing all other payment gateways from its apps, restricting users to Google’s proprietary payment systems – an unfair practice, as deemed by the watchdog.
