Reuters: European Commission working on Apple antitrust complaint over NFC

The European Commission plans to file an antitrust complaint with Apple over its use of the NFC chip in Apple smartphones, according to Reuters. The company severely restricts the use of that chip, which the EC believes would be bad for competition.

The European Commission’s investigation began last June as a general investigation into Apple Pay. At the time, the EC wanted to investigate the NFC chip, how Apple Pay is used in apps and stores of other companies, and Apple’s refusal to let competitors use the payment system. Meanwhile, according to Reuters sources, the research would specifically focus on NFC, which can only be used for Apple services.

The sources say that the Commission is working on a statement of objections, with which the EC indicates what it is complaining about. The European Commission would like to send this document next year, one of the sources said. Such a statement of objections is a step within EC competition investigations. If Apple does not do enough with the complaint, the Commission could force cases or demand a fine. Neither the European Commission nor Apple responded substantively to Reuters.

The ACM previously ruled that Apple’s restrictive attitude and the NFC chip constitute a competition problem. However, the current European rules would not offer ACM any possibilities to take action against this. For this there would first have to be a competing payment app, but such a competing payment app does not exist because there is no access to the NFC chip. The ACM called it a chicken-and-egg problem in July. The watchdog therefore argued for additional European rules to be able to enforce opening.