Apple and Meta face fines while EU seeks to avoid US tensions

EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said recently the bloc won’t shy away from taking on Silicon Valley firms for fear of retaliation

Fri, 28 Mar, 2025 - 17:36

Samuel Stolton

Apple and Meta are set be hit by fines under the European Union’s Big Tech competition rulebook toward the end of next week, with the iPhone maker facing the added threat of recurring penalties under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.

EU regulators will likely dole out relatively modest fines against the two American tech firms, compared to antitrust penalties of the past, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move is seen as an attempt to enforce the EU’s digital rules while avoiding inflaming tensions with US president Donald Trump, who has warned he’d strike back with heavy tariffs following any “disproportionate” penalties against American tech firms.

EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said recently the bloc won’t shy away from taking on Silicon Valley firms for fear of retaliation. However, Mr Trump is expected to roll out a wide swath of so-called "reciprocal tariffs" next week he says are aimed at countering non-tariff barriers, which could include tech regulations.

Reputational risk

While the upcoming fines under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act are not expected to be high, Apple in particular may face a broader reputational risk. The company’s penalty is likely to be accompanied by so-called periodic penalty payments, according to anonymous sources.

Under the act, the EU has general fining powers of up to 10% of global annual revenue. But it also has the ability to levy repeated fines of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover, in order to compel compliance with the rules.

European regulators have used such recurring fines against Apple before. A long-running spat between Apple and the Dutch competition authority over apps led to consecutive weekly fines that ran on for several months, and reached a maximum penalty of €50m.

Apple is being probed by EU regulators under the act for allegedly preventing apps from being able to link out to alternative platforms to make purchases. It faced a €1.8bn fine last year for similar abuses but only against music-streaming apps, under the bloc’s traditional antitrust tools.

Meta, meanwhile, is expected to be fined next week under the DMA over its ad-free services on Instagram and Facebook, the people said. The watchdog suspects that Meta’s rules force users to consent to their personal data being combined — something the law places guardrails on.

In November, it was hit with a €798m fine by EU regulators for tying its Facebook Marketplace service to the social network.