Apple urges judge to end US smartphone monopoly case
Apple will ask a federal judge on Wednesday to dismiss the U.S. Justice Department’s case accusing the iPhone maker of unlawfully dominating the smartphone market in the latest Big Tech antitrust battle.
U.S. District Judge Julien Neals in Newark, New Jersey, will hear arguments from Apple lawyers and prosecutors who say the company locks in users and shuts out competition by limiting interoperability between the iPhone and third-party apps and devices.
Apple has moved to dismiss the case, saying the restrictions on developers’ access to its technology were reasonable, and that forcing the company to share technology with competitors would stifle innovation.
Antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech companies are a two-pronged trend. The case against Apple began during Donald Trump’s first presidential term and was filed during President Joe Biden’s administration.
In other cases, Alphabet’s Google was found to have an illegal monopoly in online search, Meta Platforms is being tried on claims it stifled competition by acquiring upstart rivals, and Amazon.com is fighting a case about its policies towards vendors and suppliers.
But some claims, like those at the heart of the Apple case, ultimately failed.
A judge has dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s claim against Meta over the restrictions the social media platform places on third-party app developers.
In the Google search case, the judge rejected a claim that Google should have done more to accommodate advertisers on Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.
Apple cited the ruling in its own case, saying it shows that denying access to technology should not be considered anti-competitive.
The Apple lawsuit filed in March by the DOJ and a coalition of states targets restrictions and fees on app developers, as well as technical roadblocks to third-party devices and services — such as smartwatches, digital wallets and messaging services — that would compete with his own.
If the judge finds the allegations plausible, the case can proceed further.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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