The Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered the withdrawal of investigation reports in August after tech giant Apple said the watchdog had disclosed trade secrets to rivals in the case dating back to 2021, Reuters reported.
The CCI asked the parties to return the reports and destroy any copies of them, and the regulator then issued new reports.
The CCI’s internal order showed that Apple had alleged in November that the lead complainant in the antitrust probe, Indian non-profit Together We Fight Society (TWFS), had failed to comply with directions to give assurance that old investigation reports had been destroyed.
Apple asked the CCI to “take action against TWFS for non-compliance with its order” and “withhold the revised report,” the CCI order, dated Nov. 13 showed.
“Apple’s request to withhold the investigation report is deemed untenable,” the CCI said in the order. The CCI did not respond outside regular business hours on Sunday, and phone calls to TWFS representatives went unanswered.
A CCI probe found that Apple abused its dominant position in the app store market on its iOS operating system at the expense of other app developers, users and payment processors.
Apple has denied any wrongdoing and said it is a minor player in India, where phones running Google’s Android dominate.
The internal order from the Indian regulator also showed that Apple has been asked to submit its audited financial statements for fiscal years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 under regulatory guidelines aimed at determining potential financial penalties in the case.
Senior CCI officials will review the investigation report and make a final ruling on the case.
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