UK Antitrust Regulator CMA Refused Permission to Appeal Apple Probe Ruling

Britain’s antitrust regulator on Wednesday refused permission to attraction in opposition to a ruling that it had no energy to open an investigation into Apple’s cellular browser and cloud gaming providers.

Apple received an attraction in March in opposition to the choice by the Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) to open a full investigation into the dominance of Apple and Alphabet’s Google in cellular browsers.

The Competitors Attraction Tribunal quashed the choice to open the investigation and on Wednesday refused the CMA’s software for permission to attraction in opposition to that ruling.

The CMA can nonetheless take its bid for permission to attraction in opposition to the tribunal’s ruling on to the Court docket of Attraction.

“We’re fastidiously contemplating the tribunal’s resolution and are contemplating our subsequent steps,” a CMA spokesperson mentioned.

The CMA had mentioned in March that the ruling “dangers considerably undermining the CMA’s potential to effectively and successfully examine and intervene in markets”.

However, in its resolution refusing permission to attraction, the tribunal mentioned that the regulation on when the CMA can open a market investigation is evident.

“The letter of the regulation issues, even when it generates undesirable or unlucky outcomes,” the tribunal mentioned. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023