Apple has lost its legal battle against German regulators, with the Federal Court of Justice upholding a decision that places the company under heightened antitrust scrutiny. The ruling, issued on Tuesday, confirms that Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) was justified in designating Apple as a “company of paramount cross-market significance for competition” — a classification that subjects the tech giant to stricter regulatory oversight.
The ruling marks the end of a long episode that had first begin when the FCO had initiated the lawsuit two years ago, and the loss means that Apple now joins other Big Tech firms, including Google parent Alphabet, Facebook owner Meta, and Amazon, in facing expanded scrutiny under Germany’s special abuse control regulations (which was introduced in 2021, and is designed to prevent dominant tech firms from suppressing competition in the market). With this ruling, German regulators now have the legal backing to scrutinize the company’s practices further, particularly when it comes to the company’s control over app distribution, advertising data, and platform policies. The FCO is expected to continue its investigations into whether Apple’s App Store policies unfairly disadvantage competitors.
For its part, the FCO, Germany’s primary antitrust authority, welcomed the ruling as a major step toward ensuring fair competition in digital markets. FCO President Andreas Mundt praised the decision. “We are pleased that the Federal Court of Justice has upheld our decision. It is now confirmed by the highest court of appeal that Apple is subject to stricter abuse control. This means that our ongoing review of Apple’s tracking rules for third-party app providers is based on a solid foundation, and we are working vigorously on this as well as on other cases against the major digital companies,” Mundt stated.
The ruling pointed to Apple’s vertically integrated business model, which tightly links its hardware, software, and services. Regulators raised concerns that Apple’s control over its App Store, iOS operating system, and proprietary payment systems could limit competition by making it difficult for rivals to compete on equal footing. A major factor in the case was Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, a privacy feature that requires apps to obtain user consent before tracking their data. While Apple presents ATT as a tool to protect user privacy, German regulators suspect that it disadvantages third-party advertisers while allowing Apple’s own services to collect valuable consumer data. This potential self-preferencing is one of the key concerns that the FCO continues to investigate.
For its part, the tech titan strongly opposed the ruling, arguing that the company faces strong competition in Germany and should not be subject to additional regulatory burdens. “Apple is proud to be an engine for innovation, job creation, and competition in every market where we operate. We disagree with the Federal Court of Justice’s ruling, which discounts the value of a business model that puts user privacy and security at its core,” a spokesperson for the company said. The Cupertino-headquartered tech titan also attempted to escalate the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg, requesting an external review of the decision. However, the German court rejected the request.
