Mercado Libre denounces Apple in Mexico and Brazil for anti-competitive practices

The e-commerce company Free market denounce the tech giant Apple for anti-competitive practices, before the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) and the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece), in Mexico, and before the Administrative Council of Economic Defense, of Brazil.

“Apple abuses its monopoly on the distribution of applications for devices with operating system iOS by imposing a series of restrictions on the distribution of digital goods and purchases within applications (in-app), which displace or limit the entry of Apple’s competitors,” Mercado Libre said in a statement.

According to the company of Argentine origin, the prohibition imposed by Apple on apps to distribute third-party digital goods or services has several anti-competitive effects:

• It blocks the rise of distributors, other than Apple, of digital goods and services on iOS devices.
• It restricts the distribution of content that competes with that of Apple.

Mercado Libre also denounced Apple for forcing applications to use its payment processing tools, a practice that in the legislation is known as tied sales and for which Apple has already been denounced in Mexico by lawyer Mony de Swaan.

“This second restriction has already been denounced by other developers and has been -or is being- investigated by various competition agencies in the world such as the European Commission, the CMA of the United Kingdom, the ACM of the Netherlands, the Bundeskartellamt of Germany, the ACCC of Australia, the KFTC of South Korea, the JFTC of Japan, the ICC of India and the ICC of Indonesia”, detailed Mercado Libre.

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