Apple will not be slapped with fresh fines the moment its 60-day grace period to fix alleged Digital Markets Act (DMA) breaches ends on June 26, an EU spokesperson has confirmed. Regulators will instead complete a formal review of Apple’s latest practices, share a “statement of objections” with the company, and only then decide on sanctions, dispelling fears of an automatic hit next week.
The stay of execution stems from an April enforcement action that cost Apple €500 million for limiting “steering”, rules that once blocked developers from telling customers about cheaper payment methods outside the App Store. Under the DMA, Apple is a designated “gatekeeper” and must allow such links to foster competition and user choice. The same April decision fined Meta €200 million over its “pay-or-consent” ad-tracking model, and gave both firms 60 days to comply.
What Brussels Can Still Do
If the Commission concludes Apple remains non-compliant, it can wield much sharper tools:
- Periodic penalties of up to 5 percent of the global average daily turnover for each day a violation continues.
- One-off fines of up to 10 percent of annual worldwide revenue, 20 percent for repeat offences, putting tens of billions of euros in play given Apple’s record 2024 sales.
No timeline exists for that verdict. Officials describe the inquiry as an “ongoing exchange,” a phrase that signals months of document swaps, developer interviews, and economic analysis rather than a courtroom-style showdown.
Apple’s High-Stakes Compliance Gamble
To placate regulators, Apple has rolled out an EU-only rulebook: alternative app marketplaces, sideloading via “Web Distribution,” and a new Core Technology Fee that charges developers €0.50 once an app tops one million installs. Critics such as Epic Games and Spotify call the plan “hostile compliance,” arguing the fee neutralises any benefit of leaving Apple’s walled garden.
Apple insists its changes protect privacy and security while meeting DMA mandates. Yet trade tensions lurk in the background; Washington has already branded the DMA an unfair drag on American firms, and Brussels’ caution this month is widely viewed as an attempt to avoid escalating the trans-Atlantic spat.
Bigger Picture for Big Tech
Alongside Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, and Microsoft must overhaul entrenched practices ranging from self-preferencing to data sharing. Early enforcement has been modest, €700 million in combined April fines, but EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has warned that repeat offenders could face break-up orders in “systemic” cases.
For now, Cupertino’s biggest win is time. Without an automatic penalty on 26 June, Apple can keep negotiating even as the spectre of daily multi-million-euro fines looms over its push into Apple Intelligence, Vision Pro apps, and a European AI cloud. Whether those talks end in détente or yet another headline-grabbing sanction remains the billion-dollar question.