An arbitration court in Moscow has rejected Apple's claim of invalidating and abolishing the decision and order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia dated July 29, 2022 to bring it to administrative responsibility, as well as the resolution of the service on January 17, 2023 on 1.2 billion rubles fine.
"To refuse to recognize the decisions and actions (inaction) as illegal in full," reads the information on the court's website.
The third parties in the case are Yandex LLC and the Internet-Video Association.
In July 2022, the FAS of Russia found Apple to be in violation of antitrust laws. The company was found guilty of abusing its dominant position in the market of distribution of iOS apps. According to the FAS, Apple's actions restricted developers from behaving independently and could lead to higher prices for their products. The regulator warned that the fine for this would be negotiable and amount to 0.01-0.15% of the company's annual revenue in Russia
In early 2023, the FAS imposed a fine of 1.2 billion rubles on the company for this violation.
The regulator has been pursuing the case against Apple since late October 2021. Earlier the service issued Apple a warning to eliminate the violation related to the lack of possibility for users to pay for goods in applications from the AppStore catalog using external links.
Source: Interfax
