CMA successful in appealing its right to probe Apple
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was successful in an appeal against a decision it did not have power market investigate tech giant Apple.
The UK antitrust regulator commenced a market study under the Enterprise Act 2002 in relation to the market for mobile browsers and cloud gaming.
The CMA opened an investigation in November into the dominance of Apple and Alphabet in mobile browsers, and the possibility that Apple may be restricting the cloud gaming market through its app store.
Apple challenged the lawfulness of this at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in March. Apple was represented by US law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The CAT allowed Apple’s application as it quashed the CMA’s investigation finding that the decision was ultra vires.
The CMA went to the Court of Appeal, which today, ruled that the CMA’s standalone power carries with it sufficient and important public law safeguards and that “there is no overarching principle that an undertaking is entitled to be investigated once and only once”.
The Court of Appeal viewed that the CAT “lost sight of this consideration”.
This comes as Apple lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit at the CAT earlier this month. According to Reuters, the claim is worth up to $2b as it accuses the tech giant of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones.
Apple was contacted for comment.