Apple lost its fight at Germany’s top civil court to overturn a regulator’s decision to put it under tighter antitrust scrutiny alongside other US tech giants.
The judges on Tuesday said the Federal Cartel Office was right to find that the iPhone maker’s footprint across markets meets the threshold for more oversight. Apple is one of the largest, most profitable companies worldwide and has access to extraordinary financial and other resources, the judges added.
“The products and services that Apple offers are highly vertically integrated, closely interconnected and largely reserved for users of Apple devices,” the court said. “This is the basis for what the company itself calls the Apple ecosystem.”
Apple was attempting to topple a May 2023 decision by the German antitrust watchdog, which subjected it to the so-called 19a rules on the grounds that its strong position in digital markets could threaten competition.
It’s the second time the court has considered a case involving a top Silicon Valley player trying to escape the measures, which were implemented in 2021 to better regulate key tech companies. Last year, Amazon failed to convince the court that it should be exempted. The Cartel Office has in recent years also expanded its oversight of Meta Platforms’ Facebook, Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft.
The setback for Apple comes amid a clamor by Big Tech against European efforts to rein in their market dominance. CEOs have the ear of US President Donald Trump, who has called European Union fines against the industry “a form of taxation.”
© Thomson Reuters 2025
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