Delhi HC to CCI: Don’t pass final order against Appletill July 15 in App Store case

The Delhi High Court on Friday stopped the Competition Commission of India (CCI) from passing its final order against Apple Inc until July 15 in a case over allegedly anticompetitive conduct in the functioning of App Store.

However, the court allowed the antitrust regulator to continue with the proceedings and asked the iPhone and MacBook maker to cooperate fully.

A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia noted the CCI's statement that no coercive steps would be taken against Apple in the case.


"Lay your hands off till July 15. Proceed with the matter. They will cooperate but you will not pass a final order," the bench told the commission. It observed that passing the final orders could create "complications" since Apple's challenge to the competition law allowing retrospective penalties on global turnover is pending before it.

Apple argued that the competition regulator was overstepping its authority by pushing ahead with a final hearing even as key legal challenges remain pending before the HC.

Appearing for Apple, senior counsel AM Singhvi argued that even though its challenge to the Competition Act was listed for July, the CCI has scheduled the final hearing on May 21.

The competition regulator has since 2024 been demanding detailed financial disclosures from Apple for calculating potential penalties, after concluding that the company may have abused its dominant position in the App Store market. In March this year, the CCI asked Apple to submit its audited financial statements from financial year 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Apple has resisted sharing the data, saying that it had already challenged the legal framework used to determine such penalties in the HC.

Last month, the CCI, while issuing an ultimatum directing Apple to submit the required financial details, said the matter would move towards a final hearing. Following this, Apple sought an urgent hearing before the HC.

Last year, Apple had moved the HC seeking to restrain the antitrust watchdog from enforcing certain provisions of the competition law amended in 2023 and 2024. It has challenged the amendment that allowed the commission to impose penalties on the basis of a company's global turnover. Its potential penalty at the rate of 10% of the average global turnover for fiscal 2022 to 2024 could be about $38 billion (₹3.40 lakh crore), the US tech giant said.

The company has also sought partial "quashing" of the CCI's Confidentiality Ring Order of March 3, 2025.