Asked about Apple’s correspondence, the Commission said that its door would still be open, but that it is the “only responsibility” of the guards to propose product changes in accordance with the law.
“The Commission was very clear whenever Apple’s proposals were safe from effective compliance and encouraged the company to request comments on the market,” said Lea Zuber, spokesperson for the committee.
“The decision (the last month) deals only with the solution that Apple decided to deploy, not another hypothetical approach that the company could have considered,” said Zuber.
Apple’s appeal potentially puts a fight against the court in Luxembourg which should clarify the exact responsibilities that the Commission must initiate a dialogue with the companies of the DMA, said Kay Jebelli, legal advisor to the Chamber of Progress, which is partly funded by Apple.
He said that the outcome of the investigation into non-compliance on Apple questions the position of the commission that the DMA is an instrument based on dialogue.
Apple’s decision to maintain the implementation of its proposed modifications occurred at the same time as Meta decided to deploy product changes in November 2024 in a separate survey without compliance. Meta’s changes initially received a cool reception of the EU executive, but were then cited as one of the reasons why the owner of Facebook received a reduced fine, noted Jebelli.
Last month, when the Commission slapped Apple with a fine of 500 million euros, it distributed a fine of 200 million euros to Meta, with a reduction based on its decision to consider the offense as ending in the November offer.
“We will have to see what the court clarifies in terms of the commission’s obligations, because the DMA does not impose many limits,” said Jebelli. “The CE considers (the DMA) as a joint venture between (itself) and the designated companies-which implies that the two parties have certain obligations,” he said.
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