Apple sees increasing risk of US abuse of dominance lawsuit

The main obstacle to holding a trial against Apple for abuse of dominant position in the United States has been removed. On Monday, June 30, federal judge Julien Xavier Neals of Newark, New Jersey, in the eastern United States, dismissed the iPhone maker's appeal against a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice for monopolistic practices designed to maintain and strengthen its smartphone's market position. A trial date has not yet been set, however, and it is not expected to take place for several years.

The standoff began in March 2024 with the US government's approach to the Cupertino, California-based group. Apple appealed in August and requested that the entire proceedings be dismissed. It argued that the Justice Department had failed to prove that the group was indeed in a monopoly situation, nor that it had made decisions designed to consolidate its dominance.

The Californian company also argued that limiting itself to the United States was not relevant because, globally, phones equipped with the Android operating system (Samsung, in particular) were significantly more numerous than iPhones.

But Judge Julien Xavier Neals, on the contrary, considered that the American government had provided sufficient elements to characterize a monopoly and a monopolistic strategy.

Prosecutors from nineteen states, as well as the prosecutor in Washington, D.C., have joined the lawsuit. The prosecution accuses the technology company of hampering the development of apps and services that can be used across multiple platforms, beyond the Apple ecosystem. The government says it relies on internal documents demonstrating that the company knowingly acted to exclude competition and innovations that could weaken its business model.

"We believe this action is not justified by the law or the facts, and we will continue to strongly oppose it in court," an Apple spokesperson told Agence France-Presse.

After decades of calm, US authorities have launched a barrage of crackdowns on tech giants in recent years, challenging what they consider to be distortions of competition.

After being declared a monopoly on online search in August 2024, Google is expected to learn its sentence in the coming weeks, as well as in another case concerning advertising.