European Union: Announced Commission investigation into Apple over qualification of iMessage as a core platform services under the Digital Markets Act

On 6 September 2023, the European Commission announced it had opened market investigations to assess Apple’s submission against the designation of its core platforms iMessage and iPadOS as gateway services under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The market investigation into Apple’s iMessage should be concluded within a maximum of 5 months and will determine if the platform should not be designated as a gatekeeper despite meeting the required thresholds under the DMA. The market investigation into Apple’s iPadOS is set to be completed within a maximum of 12 months and will focus on determining whether Apple's iPadOS should be designated as a gatekeeper, even though it does not meet the predefined thresholds.