Apple is due to head to the European Union General Court over its tax affairs this week, with the iPhone maker set to commence arguments on Tuesday to reverse a ruling by the European Commission that caused it to pay Ireland 13 billion euros ($14.4 billion) in back taxes.
The battle between Apple and the European Commission over the iPhone maker's tax affairs with Ireland will be heading to court in September, with the legal challenge set to determine whether Apple will be paid back any of its 13 billion ($14.4 billion) back tax payment.
Already coping with a $1.1 billion ruling from 2018, Apple modem supplier Qualcomm is reportedly facing a second fine from the European Commission 鈥� this time over its price war with Icera, later absorbed into Nvidia.
Ireland's investment of escrowed back taxes paid by Apple on the orders of the European Commission are not performing as well as they could be, with a report claiming the fund declined in value by 16 million euros last year.
As a way of keeping up value pending appeals, the Irish government has reportedly invested the back taxes the European Commission ordered it to collect from Apple into low-risk securities.
Qualcomm may have to pay a second big fine to the European Union over antitrust concerns for how it handled sales of 3G chips for mobile hotspot and dongles, just over a year after the chip maker was issued a $1.23 billion financial penalty for illegally shutting out modem rivals from supplying Apple.
Data supplied by Apple says that only 680,000 of Spotify's users are paying 15% of the subscription fee to Apple 鈥� and none are paying the 30% that the music streamer claims.
European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager has asked Apple some questions, and is waiting to hear back before a decision is made about the investigation of Spotify's antitrust complaints in the EU.
Qualcomm on Tuesday lost a court challenge against a European Commission request, which sought more data in its antitrust investigation of chip deals with companies like Apple.
The European Commission has fined Google $1.7 billion for illegally favoring its own AdSense in search advertising, bringing the company's total fines for anticompetitive behavior so far in the region to $9.42 billion.
Spotify described Apple as a "monopolist" late Friday, dissecting the latter's reaction to a competition complaint Spotify submitted to the European Commission.
This week on the 糖心Vlog Podcast, Spotify wants to change the App Store rules for everybody. Victor and William break the saga down, and then examine just what Spotify is really trying to achieve.
Music streaming service Spotify has elevated its disputes with Apple into a full blown anti-trust complaint filed with the European Commission. But Spotify's public case, as detailed on its website, is misleading and covers up the basic reality that Spotify wants to do business at Apple's expense without paying for it.
Music streaming company Spotify has filed a complaint with the European Commission claiming that Apple takes more money than it should be entitled to, isn't providing information on customers to vendors, and is unfairly limiting third-party access to technologies such as Siri, HomePod and Apple Watch.
The European Union appears to be abandoning plans for a tax on digital services, which at one point would have impacted Apple's sales along with the likes of Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
Google's recent EU ruling-driven rule changes for licensing access to the Google Play Store and the company's other apps to Android devices could cost some vendors as much as $40 per unit, according to internal documents, but the high fee could be significantly reduced down or eliminated entirely if Google's clients preinstall specific apps onto European smartphones.
Google will start to charge Android smartphone and tablet producers a licensing fee to include the Google Play Store and other essential apps on devices sold in Europe, as a way to comply with the European Commission's antitrust decision.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will be speaking at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners on October 24, delivering the keynote during the public 'Debating Ethics' session at the European conference.
While Apple's full plans for Shazam aren't entirely clear, the company announced on Monday that the deal for the music identification service is complete, and the app will go advertising-free soon.
Ahead of an upcoming appeal of a 2016 tax ruling, Apple has paid the equivalent of over $15 billion to the Irish government to settle claims of underpayment of tax to the European Union.
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Malcolm Owen
Roger Fingas
Mike Wuerthele
William Gallagher
Victor Marks
Daniel Eran Dilger
Stephen Silver
