Antitrust and digital platforms in competition law: Apple Inc. v. Pepper case

Abstract

Digital platforms are getting more general because of growing the level of online commerce. As a result, courts and antimonopoly regulators around the entire world face with the issues of applying antitrust rules to digital platforms. And each time it raises a number of interesting questions from the practical and theoretical point of view. In antitrust cases it’s difficult to define the product and geographic boundaries of the market where digital platforms operate. In 2019 the US Supreme Court decide a case between a group of iPhone users and Apple Inc. iPhone users filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. claiming that Apple had unlawfully monopolized market for the sale of apps by charging consumers higher than competitive prices. US Supreme Court’s judgment in Apple v Pepper is really crucial for competition law, indeed. During analyzing the case, the following questions arise. Whether the «App Store» is a digital platform or not? Whether the «App Store» is a product market or not? If the «App Store» is a product market, what way should we determine geographic boundaries of this market? However, US Supreme Court’s judgment in Apple v Pepper does not provide us with answers to these questions. Obviously, the court had good reasons for this. Let's analyze this judgment and try to find answers to the questions that the US Supreme Court left opened.