The US Department of Justice notched an initial win in its antitrust case against Apple today, with a federal judge rejecting Apple’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit outright. The government’s allegations are “sufficient to demonstrate Apple’s specific intent to monopolize the smartphone and performance smartphone market,“ Judge Julien Neals wrote in an opinion on Monday.
Apple filed to dismiss the government’s lawsuit in August 2024, arguing that the Justice Department failed to show that Apple monopolized the smartphone market or acted in an anticompetitive manner. The lawsuit was based on the “outlandish” premise that Apple’s success comes from “intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats,” the company wrote.
The case’s progress is still early, and the judge isn’t ruling on any of the government’s claims just yet. But he is saying that the allegations are “sufficient” to support the claims that Apple acted in an anti-competitive manner. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The win here wasn’t necessarily a given. When the Federal Trade Commission sued Meta (then Facebook) for anti-competitive practices in the social media space, the judge initially dismissed its claims and forced it to re-file before the case was allowed to proceed.
The DOJ lawsuit against Apple claims that the company monopolizes the smartphone market by limiting the functionality of would-be competitive products, from apps to accessories. Jonathan Kanter, then DOJ Antitrust Division Chief, said at the time that Apple used “contractual rules and restrictions” to raise prices on consumers and developers and “throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies.”
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