On Thursday 11 July, the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, announced that the European Commission had accepted Apple’s commitments in the case relating to the firm’s refusal to grant its competitors access to ‘Near Field Communication’ (NFC) technology, which enables contactless payments in shops using Apple iPhones (see EUROPE 13332/18).
These phones, the Commission pointed out, are based exclusively on iOS, Apple’s operating system, an ecosystem in which Apple controls every aspect, including the conditions of access for mobile wallet developers.
Ms Vestager clarified that these commitments put an end to the Commission’s investigation and that the European Central Bank had confirmed its support for these measures, which she said went further than what the Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires of gatekeepers.
As part of its investigation, the Commission came to the preliminary conclusion that Apple may have abused its dominant position on the mobile phone market.
Apple could thus have infringed Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which prohibits the abuse of a dominant position in the internal market, by refusing to provide access to the NFC input on iOS to competing mobile wallet developers and by reserving this access for its Apple Pay service.
Apple proposed initial commitments, which were the subject of a consultation, between 19 January and 19 February (see EUROPE 13332/18).
Margrethe Vestager stressed that the consultation had attracted a great deal of interest from stakeholders.
Apple then amended its proposals for corrective measures, undertaking in particular to: extend the payment options offered by the new ‘HCE’ payment applications to other industry-certified terminals; remove the requirement for developers to have a licence to access the NFC input; guarantee access to NFC for third-party developers, for the pre-development of payment applications; update the ‘HCE’ architecture to keep pace with the standards used by Apple Pay; enable developers to encourage users to easily set the payment application of their choice; shorten the time taken to resolve disputes.
Link to detailed commitments: https://aeur.eu/f/d0f (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)