The European Commission has accused the US tech giant, Apple, for taking advantage of its market place position to exclude other mobile wallet developers from its payment system.
The EU sent the company an official “Statement of Objections”, in which it points out that they have abused their position as creators of the iOS platform to keep other wallet applications out of their fair share of the market and not giving users the option to access other mobile wallet apps apart from their own.
“The Commission takes issue with the decision by Apple to prevent mobile wallets app developers, from accessing the necessary hardware and software (‘NFC input’) on its devices, to the benefit of its own solution, Apple Pay,” said the EU in their antitrust statement.
It’s worth pointing out that this is just the opening act in the antitrust process against Apple, with the company now having the opportunity to respond to the accusations. It is noted by the EU that a Statement of Objections “does not prejudge the outcome of an investigation.”
A representative for the company pointed out that their platform offers equal access to all other competitors, while setting industry-leading standards for privacy and security.” They added that they are willing to continue working with the EU to ensure that consumers will have access to the payment platform of their own choice.
This latest move follows a number of others in the EU’s attempt to put the big tech companies under greater jurisdiction. Thanks to the newly introduced Digital Markets Act, which was voted in a few weeks ago by the European Parliament, any acts which may be deemed as anticompetitive will incur a penalty of ten percent on their yearly revenue on the violator, with a further 20 percent for repeating violations.
This new law could even see the EU make changes to the way a company does business, with Apple and other tech giants having major objections in regards to the new provisions suggested in the act.
