Apple isn’t to Margrethe Vestager’s taste.
The company leaves a “sad aftertaste of illegal behavior,” she told reporters in Amsterdam after charging the company with breaching digital rules that aim to open up Big Tech services.
“I am surprised that this is the behavior from someone who’s presenting themselves as a great business with great innovations,” she said.
Vestager is ratcheting up legal action against the iPhone maker, months before she’s due to wrap up a decade as the European Union’s mighty antitrust enforcer.
Apple now risks a fine of up to 10 percent of its yearly revenue — $383 billion last year — for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) over its app store rules and charges. Fines could escalate to up to 20 percent of revenue for a repeat offense. There are two other probes into developer contract terms and web browsers also underway.
“This is going on at full speed,” Vestager said of EU enforcement of the DMA rules, to applause from an Amsterdam conference room filled with competition officials and tech firms.
“We are concerned that Apple designed its new business model to discourage app developers and end users from taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by the DMA.”
Apple spokesman Julien Trosdorf said on Monday that the company was “confident our plan complies with the law.”
Bad blood
Vestager now has a long history of battles with Apple and how it runs its business in Europe. Most recently, she fined the company €1.8 billion in a case triggered by music-streaming rival Spotify.
But her biggest fight has been over Apple’s tax arrangements with Ireland where eight years ago she demanded the company pay the country some €13 billion over selective tax arrangements.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook blasted her order as “total political crap.” Vestager even won the dubious honor of catching the attention of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who referred to her as the “tax lady.”
The Apple tax case may have been a bitter one for Vestager, as the iPhone maker’s successful court challenge quashed her tax order. A final ruling from the EU’s top court is still pending.
The legal outcome doesn’t change Vestager’s view of the company’s doings.
“We’ve had the tax case without but no matter how that ends, it shows that Apple contributes very, very little when it comes to taxes, in the jurisdictions where they make their profits,” she told reporters in Amsterdam.
AI? No thanks
One of the ultimate threats for U.S. Big Tech firms is to withhold innovations from European customers over a regulatory climate they see as increasingly hostile.
Apple did just that last week when it said it wouldn’t immediately roll out artificial intelligence tools in the region due to “regulatory uncertainties.”
Vestager was sanguine, saying she had no need for a more intrusive or embedded AI service.
“I was personally quite relieved that I would not get an AI-updated service on my iPhone,” she said. “It would be a ‘thank you but no thank you’ for me.”