The General Court of the European Union dismissed the actions brought by the US digital giant Apple against its designation in September 2023 as a ‘gatekeeper’ under the DMA Regulation (2022/1925) governing digital markets (see EUROPE 13244/3) for its five App Store software application shops installed on different digital devices, as well as for its iOS operating system, in a judgment delivered on Wednesday 8 July (joined cases T-1079/23, T-1080/23 and T-214/24).
First, the General Court held inadmissible the plea of illegality raised by Apple against the provision of the DMA Regulation imposing interoperability obligations on undertakings designated as ‘gatekeepers’. According to the Court, that provision cannot be relied on because it has no direct link with the criteria on which the contested designation is based.
The EU court confirms the Commission’s assessment that the different versions of the App Store, installed on iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Mac computers and Apple TV, pursue an identical objective, namely bringing together application developers and end users in order to facilitate the distribution of software applications.
According to the General Court, the differences invoked by Apple to argue that each of these shops constituted a separate core platform service (CPS), so that only the iOS App Store application shop reaches the thresholds required for designation as a ‘gatekeeper’, are mainly linked to the specific characteristics of the devices and do not justify distinguishing several core platform services.
Lastly, the General Court held inadmissible the actions relating to the decision to open a market investigation in order to determine whether iMessage, Apple’s number-independent interpersonal communications service (NIICS), constitutes a core platform service.
To see the General Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/mrr (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)