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The antitrust watchdog has given Apple 20 days to comply, or face a daily penalty of $43,000.
Brazil’s antitrust regulator, the Council for Economic Defense (CADE) ruled on Monday (25 November) that Apple must lift restrictions and allow app developers to market third-party apps and allow the use of other in-app purchasing systems.
Cade’s decision yesterday is the result of an investigation into Apple following a complaint filed by the Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre in 2022.
Now, the antitrust watchdog has given Apple 20 days to comply, or face a daily penalty of R$250,000 or $43,000.
The 2022 complaint by MercadoLibre – the most popular e-commerce site in Latin America as of 2023 – accused the iPhone-maker of abusing a monopoly in the distribution of apps for its devices.
In the complaint, the company criticised Apple for requiring developers to use Apple’s own in-app payment system – stopping them from redirecting buyers elsewhere.
The company’s legal counsel said that Apple “harms its competitors, unless they are integrated digital giants themselves, who may even benefit from this artificial tilt towards integrated ecosystems”.
Cade has now ruled that Apple must lift restrictions and let app developers to add tools allowing customers to purchase their services or products outside the Apple ecosystem as well as allowing developers to market third-party products and services.
A similar complaint was filed in the EU by Spotify and an audiobook distributor in 2020 leading to a number of antitrust investigations into Apple by the European Commission.
In March this year, concluding one of the investigations, the Commission found that Apple had abused its dominant position in the music distributor market in the Apple App store, finding in particular that it applied restrictions on app developers, preventing them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app. As a result, Apple was fined €1.8bn.
However, last week, the investigation following the e-book distributor’s complaint was dropped as the distributor withdrew the complaint.
Apple, in its iOS 17.4 update earlier this year complied with the EU Digital Markets Act and included supports for alternative app stores – meaning that users in the EU can install alternative app marketplaces on their iPhone. However, this feature, is not available outside of the region.
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