Apple paid a fine of 1.2 billion rubles for violating Russian antitrust laws

In July 2022, the Federal AntimonopolyThe Russian service found Apple to have violated antitrust laws and demanded it pay a fine of 1.2 billion rubles. According to the regulator, Apple was imposing its own payment system on Russian application developers. At the end of May 2023, the Moscow Arbitration Court rejected Apple’s appeal to overturn the decision in the case and the order of the FAS Russia.

App Store rules strictly prohibitediOS application developers provide the user with information about the possibility of paying for purchases using third-party payment systems. Under the threat of removing the application from the App Store, the company demanded that developers remove links to their Internet resources, as well as make changes to the registration form to prevent transition to external sites.

In October 2023 “due to a court decision”Apple has officially allowed Russian developers to integrate the use of alternative payment methods into their applications for iOS and iPadOS. When using third-party payment systems, Apple's commission will be 27%, which is only 3% lower than the standard commission in the App Store. At the same time, only developers from Russia have the opportunity to post links to external resources; these links should not be shown to users from other countries. Mention of third-party payment systems must comply with Apple standards.

As a result of the administrativeinvestigation, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia fined Apple 1,177,988,700 rubles for violating antitrust laws. On January 19, 2024, Apple paid the fine. The funds went to the budget of the Russian Federation.

In February last year, Apple already paid a fine of 906 million rubles. for violation of the antimonopoly legislation of the Russian Federation, appointed in 2020 by the FAS at the request of Kaspersky Lab.