The Justice Department and attorneys general of 15 states and the District of Columbia jointly filed a lawsuit Thursday against Apple Inc., alleging the company violated antitrust laws by using its dominant iPhone platform to freeze out competitors.
“Apple has maintained monopoly power for the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on merits, but by violating federal antitrust law,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at a news conference. “Apple has employed a strategy that relies on exclusionary anticompetitive conduct that hurts both consumers and developers.”
Apple’s market share for smartphones in the United States exceeds 65 percent, the company charges as much as $1,600 for an iPhone, and company’s annual net income exceeds the “individual gross domestic product of more than 100 countries,” he noted.
