Closing summary
Time to recap…
Apple has been fined €1.84bn by European authorities for stifling competition from rival music streaming services.
Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition chief, said the tech giant had broken EU antitrust rules for a decade by “restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem”.
It is the first time the iPhone maker has been punished for breaching EU law. Apple has vowed to appeal, insisting it has created Europe’s thriving digital music market.
Vestager also revealed that most of the penalty – €1.8bn – was a punitive penalty added to make sure the level of the fine matched Apple’s financial strength, on top of a ‘traditional’ penalty of around €40m calculated under EU rules.
Spotify welcomed the decision, saying it sends a powerful message that no company can wield power abusively to control how other companies interact with their customers.
In other news…
The UK government has introduced a new investment package, worth £360m, to support R&D research.
In another boost, Siemens will invest £100m in a new manufacturing centre to replace its Chippenham rail signalling factory in Wiltshire.
In the markets, Japan’s Nikkei has hit the 40,000-point mark for the first time.
Inflation in Turkey has risen back over 67%, putting pressure on the Turkish central bank to consider further interest rate rises.
The oil price is a little higher, after the Opec+ group agreed to extended its production cuts yesterday.
Here’s the latest on Wednesday’s budget:
And in other news…
Shares in Apple have dropped by 2.2% in early trading, to $175.69, after being hit by the EU’s fine and its removal from Goldman Sachs’s list of top buys.
