Apple and Meta fined millions by EU over competition law

Apple and Meta have been fined millions of euros by the EU for breaking digital competition rules.

They are the first companies to be fined for breaching a new law designed to increase competition in the EU's digital economy. Apple was fined €500m (£428m) for stopping app makers from pointing to cheaper options outside the App Store - and Meta fined €200m (£171m) for forcing Instagram and Facebook users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.

The fines were issued under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), a series of rules designed to give consumers and businesses more choice and to prevent big tech from cornering digital markets. The EU's decisions were expected to be announced in March but officials reportedly held off because of the escalating trade war with US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump has repeatedly complained about regulations from Brussels affecting American companies. In February, the White House issued a statement saying it would "consider responsive actions like tariffs" in the face of fines and policies that foreign governments levy on American firms.

Read more:UK 'will be among hardest hit' by trade warHow Trump changed his mind on tariffs Both companies have issued complaints about the EU penalties. Apple accused the commission of "unfairly targeting" the iPhone maker, saying it has "spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law".

Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan said in a statement: "The Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards." The DMA is designed to ensure "citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers," said Henna Virkkunen, the commission's executive vice president for tech sovereignty. "The decisions adopted today find that both Apple and Meta have taken away this free choice from their users and are required to change their behaviour," she said..