Apple has reportedly appealed the Euro500 million fine imposed by the European Commission. In April this year, the European Commission penalized apples for its anti-manipulation policy under the Digital Market Act (DMA), which limits the ability of game developers and customers to benefit from other distribution and payment channels.
In March 2024, Apple announced a major reform of App Store in the EU region to respond to the DMA requirements, including allowing alternative application shops, providing new business terms for developers and supporting third-party browser engines. However, in April 2025, the European Commission issued the first tickets to Apple and Meta on the basis of DMA. The reason for the fine for apples is their “anti-direction policy” by App Store. The European Commission stated that the amount of the fine was based on the seriousness and duration of the apple violation. Just last week, Apple further modified the EU Regional App Store Rules, focusing on these anti-referral policies. The company removed many of the barriers to the use of alternative payment schemes by developers and introduced a new set of business terms for such transactions. In its statement to the media, Apple expressed strong dissatisfaction with the European Commission: “We appeal today because we believe that the European Commission’s decision and its unprecedented fines go far beyond the requirements of the law. As our upcoming appeal indicates, the European Commission is imposing the way we operate our application shops and forcing us to accept commercial clauses that confuse developers and disadvantage users. We impose these daily fines in order to avoid punitive penalties and will present the facts to the court.”
In its statement, Apple stressed that the European Commission continued to redefine the specific obligations of Apple under the DMA framework. Apple has adjusted the guidelines last year to allow EU developers to link to external payment and to use alternative payment methods. But now apples indicate that the EU has extended the definition of “direction” to include: the promotion of alternative payment options in applications; the use of web-based viewing guides in applications; links to alternative application shops; and links to third-party applications distributed through these alternative shops. Apple claims that the EU has made its “shop service fee” mandatory and must include multiple levels. When Apple first announced the fee last August, the rate was 10 per cent for those who chose the EU alternative business clause (which could be reduced to 5 per cent for those who participated in the App Store Small Enterprise Scheme); and 20 per cent for those who chose the standard business clause (which could be reduced to 7 per cent for the members of the Small Enterprise Scheme). In last week’s latest EU rule adjustment, Apple split the “storage service fee” into two separate tariff systems. This is seen as a direct response to the EU hierarchy, but the details have not yet been fully disclosed.
Apple’s appeal put the core of the legal game on the table: Apple argued that the European Commission ‘ s use of the DMA policy to unduly interfere with the autonomy of its commercial operations and to impose the operational details and commercial terms of its shops went beyond what was reasonably required by law. The EU, for its part, considered that the initial adjustment of apples did not fully meet the DMA ‘ s objective of promoting fair competition and user choice, in particular that its anti-rewinding policy remained a constraint on developers and users. This 500 million euro fine appeal marked a new phase in the conflict between Apple and the EU regulatory bodies over DMA compliance. The result is not only the attribution of large fines, but also the far-reaching implications of how the DMA Act is interpreted and implemented, as well as the commercial model boundaries of apples (and even other “gatekeeper” enterprises” regulated by the DMA) in the EU market. The Tribunal ‘ s decision will be a key case for science and technology giants and regulators to compete globally.
