UK drops App Store investigation, says it has better things to do

After three years and, significantly, a change in government, the UK's competition regulator has closed its App Store investigation before reaching a conclusion.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first announced the investigation in 2021, saying that it followed an unspecified number of complaints sent to it. At the time, the regulator said that the complaints "warrant careful scrutiny."

According to the UK government's own documentation, the investigation opened on March 3, 2021, and an initial information-gathering process ran until February 2022. Then in March 2022, the CMA decided it had sufficient grounds to proceed, and it had conducted what it described as analysis and review.

Now, however, the investigation has been dropped. A statement from the CMA says it has "closed its investigation... on the grounds that it no longer constitutes an administrative priority for the CMA."

"For the avoidance of doubt," it continues, "this does not constitute a decision by the CMA as to whether the Chapter II prohibition of the Competition Act (the 'Chapter II prohibition') is being or has been infringed."

The CMA's statement leaves open the possibility it could be reopened at some point. It also notes that it has now gained further powers under the UK's new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) 2024.

That new DMCC act will see the CMA designating some firm as having Strategic Market Status in a digital activity. The CMA can then set requirements for such companies.

Part of the CMA's decision to drop the investigation will be because the DMCC received royal assent in May 2024 and will be enacted presently. But there is also that the UK's government has just changed.

Prior to the change, the previous Tory government abandoned some plans and rushed others through, such as its Digital Markets Act. Since the change, the new Labour government has been reappraising where to concentrate its resources.