Apple is first tech company accused of violating EU's new competition law

Driving the news: The investigation's preliminary findings determined that Apple's app store rules hinder developers from directing consumers to other ways of buying products and getting content outside the Apple bubble, the European Commission said in a press release Monday.

• The EU also opened an investigation into whether Apple's technology fee for third-party developers violates the sweeping new law.

Zoom in: The tech giant has a chance to respond to the preliminary findings before EU regulators make a final decision by March 2025.

• If Apple is found to be in non-compliance, it could be fined up to 10% of its global revenue. This could go up to 20% for repeated infringements, the commission said.

The other side: Apple said in a statement Monday that it had made changes over the past few months to comply with the new law.

• "We are confident our plan complies with the law, and estimate more than 99% of developers would pay the same or less in fees to Apple under the new business terms we created," Apple said.
• "All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to utilize the capabilities that we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive rate," the company added.

State of play: The Digital Markets Act went into effect in March and established new restrictions on big technology companies.

• In addition to Apple, the EU also announced investigations into Meta and Google parent Alphabet for potentially violating the law.
• Apple announced last week that it would not roll out some of its new AI features in Europe this year over regulatory concerns stemming from the law.

Go deeper: EU investigates Meta, Alphabet and Apple for violating competition rules

Editor's note: This story was updated with a statement from Apple.