The EU will launch a formal antitrust investigation into the electronics giant within the next few weeks following a complaint from Spotify. The Swedish streaming service alleged Apple was “tilting the playing field to disadvantage competitors” in March, accusing it of leveraging its App Store dominance to favour Apple Music, a direct competitor to Spotify. Neither Apple nor Spotify have commented publicly on the matter; at the time of Spotify’s complaint, Apple said in a press release that the company was trying to reap the benefits of the App Store marketplace without contributing to it. (Financial Times)

Talking point: The core of Spotify’s complaint comes from Apple’s policy of charging third parties a 30 per cent fee to use its payments system for subscription sold through the App Store. Though the fee applies to Spotify and similar music subscription services, it doesn’t apply to apps like Uber. If Apple is found guilty of violating antitrust laws, the company could be fined up to 10 per cent of its total global revenues, per EU policy. But it may settle by promising to change its practices; this would speed up the process, which can otherwise take years, and help the company skirt fines.