Apple is being accused of dragging its feet to produce important documents related to its antitrust case. Here are the details.
A bit of background
The DOJ brought its case against Apple in 2024, accusing it of antitrust behavior regarding multiple app categories, such as super apps, messaging apps, and cloud streaming gaming, as well as related to third-party smartwatches and third-party digital wallets.
Apple, for its part, has attempted to dismiss the lawsuit, and as recently as last July, filed an answer accusing the DOJ of “fundamentally misunderstanding” the categories in question:
“This lawsuit seeks to attack a random collection of Apple’s design choices, degrade the privacy and security benefits of iPhone that customers value, and eliminate the competitive differentiation and consumer choice that currently exist in the marketplace. The Department of Justice and the States (collectively, “DOJ”) argue that five of Apple’s design choices are examples of a purported “monopoly playbook” to eliminate competitive threats and inhibit switching. DOJ is wrong. Apple has made careful and deliberate decisions in each of those five areas, all of which are focused on optimizing customer experience and not destroying competitors or making it more difficult for customers to buy another smartphone if they so choose. DOJ posits Apple should have made other choices, but that is not an antitrust violation and, in fact, would restrict Apple’s ability to compete and give users the differentiated products they value.”
Now, the DOJ has filed a status update letter, claiming “insufficient” document production in the case.
Today’s filing
According to the DOJ, they turned over more than 115,000 documents to Apple, while Apple has produced around 10,000 documents.
The DOJ says that while most of their requests remain outstanding, the documents that Apple has produced consist mostly of “documents Apple produced are user guides for the iPhone and Apple Watch and legal documents from other litigations. The remaining documents include news articles, press releases, surveys, studies, reports, emails, and other materials.”
As for which documents Apple is allegedly refusing to produce, they include “six human resources (“HR”) spreadsheets disclosing the roles and responsibilities of employees over a six-year period that would aid Plaintiffs in identifying custodians.”
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