UPDATE 2: Russian antitrust fines Apple $12 mln for abusing dominance

(Expands company’s comment in last paragraph)

MOSCOW, Apr 27 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has imposed a turnover-based fine of 906.299 million rubles, or more than U.S. $12 million, on Apple for violation of the antimonopoly law, the watchdog said on Tuesday in a statement.

The antitrust service completed consideration of a case against Google in August 2020 after a complaint by antivirus maker Kaspersky. It was uncovered that Apple abused its dominating position on the iOS applications market by obstructing developers of parental control applications and vague rules of admission of applications to App Store.

The regulator warned Apple it should not grant preferential conditions for applications of its own make in comparison to other firms’ apps. The warning was suspended because of it was challenged at court.

“Apple treats the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia with respect, but disagrees with the decision made and will continue to contest it in due order,” a company representative told PRIME.

“We’re proud that we’ve helped tens of thousands of developers in Russia, including Kaspersky, get access to more than 1 billion users in 155 countries of the world via App Store. We worked with Kaspersky to help them align their application with the App Store rules, imposed to protect children. At the moment, this developer has 13 applications in App Store and we processed and issued hundreds of updates for them,” the representative said.

(74.7680 rubles – U.S. $1)

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