EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager may investigate Apple Pay if there are formal complaints

“EU regulators looked into Apple’s mobile payment service and found it was not market dominant but they could review it again if they receive formal complaints, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Monday,” Reuters reports.

“Apple’s mobile payment service Apple Pay, launched in October 2014, is available in 10 EU countries including France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Denmark,” Reuters reports. “Critics say that an NFC chip embedded in the Apple iPhone means that Apple Pay is automatically selected when an iPhone user pays for goods and services, barring rival payment methods. The Danish Competition Authority is investigating the issue, which was brought to its attention by the Danish Consumer Council.”

“[European Competition Commissioner Margrethe] Vestager, who has earned a reputation for taking a tough line against companies that breach EU rules and can impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s global turnover, said she did a preliminary review some time back,” Reuters reports. “‘When we were looking at it … (at) first glance, we couldn’t see Apple being dominant. That doesn’t exclude in the future that we will have a second look. But when we looked some time ago, we didn’t find … the necessary (evidence) to start a case,’ she said. ‘Obviously if we had official complaints, we would take that seriously because the entire payment market is a very important payment market.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: A non-story dressed up to sound like something ominous, especially since that ditz Vestager is unlikely to get another term.

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