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MOSCOW, May 30. The Moscow Arbitration Court confirmed the legality of the decision and order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia, which recognized that Apple Inc. illegally imposed on application developers its payment service in the App Store, as well as decisions to impose a fine of 1.2 billion rubles on an American company.
According to a correspondent from the courtroom, the court rejected the application of Apple Inc. invalid.
«Refuse to satisfy the stated demands,» Judge Ekaterina Aksenova announced the operative part of the decision.
In July, the FAS admitted that the American company had violated antitrust laws by forcing iOS app developers from Russia to use Apple's own payment tool in their apps. As explained in the FAS, the rules of the App Store app store prohibited app developers from informing customers inside the application about the possibility of paying for digital content outside the store itself. It was impossible to use alternative payment methods — coupons, bonuses, etc.
Earlier, the FAS reported that Apple has a commission of 15% to 30% from each payment in the App Store. Apple required developers to remove links to their Internet resources, and also changed the application's feature set so that the registration form did not lead to external sites. Otherwise, the company would not allow developers to upload their apps to the App Store.
In January, the FAS announced that it had fined Apple for abuse of dominance, imposing a fine of about 1.2 billion rubles. Apple filed a lawsuit in September to challenge the July decision and order of the FAS, and in January challenged the decision to bring to administrative responsibility. The court decided in February to merge the two cases.
In court, Apple's representative disagreed with the company's dominant position, and also argued that the turnover penalty for Apple Inc. was illegal, since another company, Apple Distribution International Limited, provides services and receives revenue. The FAS lawyer noted that in judicial practice the issue of division of functions within the group has been resolved and such a division does not allow evading responsibility. Respondent also claimed that Apple's rules, which are found to be abusive, harm not only application developers, but also end users of paid content.