Colombia launches antitrust investigation into Apple App Store

The Superintendency of Industry and Commerce in Colombia announced an administrative investigation into Apple (AAPL) on Tuesday. The agency said, “Having advanced the preliminary investigation phase, by Resolution No. 60099 of 19 August 2025, the Delegature for the Protection of Competition established in a preliminary manner that Apple, as an agent with a dominance position, would have implemented different abusive strategies that would be contrary to free economic competition. These strategies would have led to the infringement referred to in Article 50 of Decree 2153 of 1992, which provides for obstruction of third parties to market access and/or marketing channels. In this case, the conduct subject to the administrative investigation for which the Delegatura initiated the procedure are as follows: First, Apple would have restricted access to new players participating in the digital app distribution market. This behaviour would have been implemented by imposing contractual clauses that would prohibit developers from creating and operating alternative app stores to the App Store. The restriction described would have limited the possibility for developers to distribute their own products, as well as those of other bidders, outside the Apple-controlled ecosystem. This conduct would aim to exclude potential competitors and preserve Apple’s monopoly position in the digital goods distribution market for iOS and iPadOS operating systems. To that extent, anyone who wanted to sell or buy in this ecosystem could only do so through Apple’s. Second, Apple would have hindered the developers of native app developers for iOS and iPadOS to marketing channels. This behaviour would have materialized by prohibiting developers from offering their users alternative payment methods for the acquisition of digital services and subscriptions within their applications. In this second scenario, Delegatura found that Apple would contractually impose the exclusive use of its purchase system called In-App Purchase as a mandatory condition for developers to offer and market such services to users or end consumers. This restriction would in practice imply that developers could not offer their users alternative payment methods for the purchase of digital services and subscriptions within their apps, which would have led Apple to take advantage of this limitation to increase its profits. Under this tax, Apple would receive a commission ranging from 15 percent to 30 percent of the value of each transaction, while prohibiting developers from informing users of potentially cheaper external payment methods, thus excluding any transactional channels outside the iOS ecosystem and iPadOS. Behaviour that is the subject of research by the Delegatura would have the potential to affect the dynamics that promote the development of free economic competition, insofar as they would generate significant impacts for developers and consumers.”