According to Reuters, Apple won the appeal, and the court ruled that the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) terminated the investigation. That means the agency can’t launch an investigation into Apple’s policies on mobile browsers and cloud gaming services.
The CMA originally planned to launch an antitrust investigation into Apple in the following two areas:
- Apple bans cloud gaming services from the App Store
This means that developers cannot provide cloud gaming-related applications on the App Store. Some believe the company is doing this to protect its own share of gaming revenue and prevent competition from its own Apple Arcade subscription gaming service.
- Only the WebKit browser engine is allowed
While Apple allows any developer to create their own web browser and put it on the App Store, Apple only approves browsers that use its own WebKit rendering engine.
The crux of the problem is that the CMA began to intervene in the investigation in June last year and missed the deadline for conducting antitrust investigations. UK law says the CMA should announce its investigation on the same day it publishes its preliminary findings.
A dispute ensued between the two parties over what the word “shall” in the legal clauses meant. Apple believes that “shall” in the legal terms should be understood as “must” (must), which means that CMA’s investigation after the deadline is not itself compliant. However, CMA believes that “shall” should be understood as “should”, and CMA believes that it can intervene in the investigation in the follow-up time.
The CMA said it was disappointed with the ruling and was considering an appeal.
