European Union regulators are investigating Apple over the technology company’s decision on Wednesday to terminate the account of a developer at rival Epic Games. The European Commission is investigating whether the move may have breached the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was passed back in 2022 and is now being implemented.
Earlier this week, the EU fined Apple more than $1.9 billion over App Store rules because Apple “abused its dominant position” in the market, the Commission said. The agency has asked Apple for more information regarding the decision to ban Epic’s account, and app stores like Apple’s and Google’s are currently the Commission’s primary focus area, Bloomberg reports. PCMag has reached out to the Commission for additional comment.
Just a few weeks ago, Apple lifted the ban on Epic Games developer accounts, but the move seems to have been short-lived. On Wednesday, Epic Games said that Apple’s second ban on its developer account “is a serious violation of the DMA and shows that Apple has no intention of allowing real competition on iOS devices.”
“If Apple retains the power to remove third-party marketplaces from iOS at will, no sane developer would be willing to use a third-party app store, as they could be permanently cut off from their audience at any time,” he continued. Epic in your post.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote late Wednesday in response to the news that competition is a “fragile thing.”
“Apple is doing everything they can to sow fear so that even if they are forced to break this blockade, every developer will know that Apple can crush any of us at will, and therefore the competition is futile,” Sweeney said.
But Apple claims Epic has breached contracts with the iPhone maker in the past, and sees that history as cause for concern.
“Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple has led the courts to find that Apple has the right to terminate any or all wholly owned subsidiaries of Epic Games,” Apple said in a statement. “In light of Epic’s past and current conduct, Apple has decided to exercise that right.”
In a February letter from App Store chief Phil Schiller, the CEO emphasized that Epic called Apple’s DMA compliance efforts “hot garbage,” “malicious” and “sneaky.”
The European Commission previously gave big tech “gatekeepers” like Apple until Wednesday to comply with the DMA, prompting others like Meta to open up their WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger services to communicate with third-party platforms.