GoKawiilAn Indian court has ordered Apple to cooperate with the country’s competition watchdog in an ongoing App Store antitrust case, while declining to pause the proceedings entirely. Here are the details.
Apple denied pause in Indian App Store antitrust investigation
As frequent 9to5Mac readers know, Apple has been locked in an antitrust dispute with India’s competition watchdog over the App Store, with the fight increasingly centered on how much access regulators should have to the company’s global financial data.
Earlier this month, Apple accused the Competition Commission of India (CCI) of overstepping its judicial authority after the watchdog issued an ultimatum demanding that the company submit its financial information.
From Reuters:
After the CCI this month gave Apple an ultimatum to submit its financials and scheduled a final hearing on May 21, the company has urged the Delhi High Court to urgently intervene to put the matter on hold.
At the center of this aspect of the dispute is Apple’s disagreement with India’s updated competition law, which allows potential penalties to be calculated based on a company’s global turnover, rather than only its local revenue.
Apple has been challenging that penalty framework in court, and, as part of that fight, has also sought to pause the CCI’s underlying App Store proceedings while it challenges the legality of the law itself.
The regulator, meanwhile, has accused Apple of repeatedly seeking extensions and delaying the case while resisting demands to submit the financial information the CCI says it needs to move forward.
Following that back-and-forth, the High Court of Delhi has now told Apple to “fully cooperate” with the CCI’s proceedings. The court did not grant Apple’s request to halt the case, though it did prevent the regulator from issuing a final decision before the case returns to court on July 15.
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