UK Closes Google and Apple App Store Probes, Deferring to New Digital Competition Regime

Key Takeaways

• The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog closed investigations into Alphabet’s Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it expects concerns to be considered under a new digital markets competition regime instead. 
• Google also faces scrutiny from regulators in the U.K., the European Union, and the U.S. for its artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships.
• U.S. regulators are investigating Apple for similar grounds to the CMA case.

The U.K.’s antitrust watchdog agency closed investigations into Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google Play Store and Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, though the tech giants’ app stores could still face regulatory security under new rules.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it expects concerns to be considered under a new digital markets competition regime instead, the U.K.’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA).

Concerns To Be Considered Under UK’s DMCCA

The U.K.’s DMCCA mirrors the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), with a focus on preventing large online platforms from abusing their market position to limit competition.

The agency opened its investigation into the Apple App Store in 2021 and its case into the Google Play Store in 2022 due to concerns that the companies were abusing their market positions to set “unfair” terms for developers and users. The U.K.’s DMCCA became law in May, shortly after the EU’s DMA took effect.

Closing the case doesn’t prevent the CMA from reopening an investigation into the app stores’ impact on competition in the future, and the CMA suggested it may do so.

“Once the new pro-competition digital markets regime comes into force, we’ll be able to consider applying those new powers to concerns we have already identified through our existing work,” CMA Executive Director for Digital Markets Will Hayter said in a release.

Google and Apple Face Other Antitrust Cases in Europe and the US

The CMA is investigating Google, as well as Amazon’s (AMZN) artificial intelligence (AI) partnership with Anthropic. Several big tech companies’ AI partnerships are under scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the U.K., the U.S., and the European Union.

The U.S. is also investigating Apple for potential antitrust violations under similar grounds to the CMA case after settling with the EU.

Alphabet shares were down 1%, while Apple shares were little changed in early trading Wednesday. The stocks have gained 18% and 17%, respectively, since the start of the year.

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