Russia: Announced Arbitration Court decision rejecting Apple's appeal of FAS imposed fine over anticompetitive practices

On 31 May 2023, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) announced that the Arbitration Court of the city of Moscow rejected Apple's appeal of its ruling in the investigation regarding the commission payments when using the AppStore. The FAS fined Apple RUB 1'177'988'700 (over USD 17 million) for violating antimonopoly legislation on 17 January 2023. The fine was imposed as a result of an administrative investigation of FAS Russia into Apple, where it found that the company had forced Russian developers of iOS applications to use its own payment tool in their applications. Further, Apple had prohibited app developers from informing customers about alternative payment mechanisms and linking them to external sites.