EU closes Apple case without penalty as Big Tech enforcement shifts to quiet compliance

When the European Commission announced on Tuesday that it would close its most prominent Digital Markets Act case against Apple without imposing a penalty, the decision passed with little of the fanfare that once accompanied Brussels' confrontations with Silicon Valley. The iPhone maker had agreed to scrap a per-install fee for app developers that had drawn complaints since 2024, and the Commission accepted the changes as sufficient to head off a non-compliance ruling. No fine. No periodic penalty payments. No dramatic press conference.

The quiet closure caps a year in which the EU's approach to reining in dominant digital platforms has shifted visibly. The €890 million fine levied against Google last month for DMA breaches, the largest of three penalties issued under the regulation, attracted a fraction of the attention that greeted the €4.1 billion abuse-of-dominance fine the EU's highest court upheld only weeks earlier, a remnant of the pre-DMA era when Brussels wielded competition law as a blunt financial instrument. Total DMA fines now stand at €1.6 billion across three companies. In the previous decade, Google alone accumulated more than €8 billion in antitrust penalties.

From punishment to specification

The contrast is deliberate. Since the DMA took full effect in 2023, the Commission has moved away from the logic of deterrence through outsized fines toward a model built on technical specification decisions, binding orders that define what compliance looks like without recording a legal violation. In July, one such decision compelled Google to share search query data with rival engines. Another required the company to allow alternative AI assistants on Android devices. Neither carried a fine. Both aim to restructure product behaviour at the design level.

Alexandre de Streel, academic director at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, argues the shift reflects the regulation's architecture rather than a loss of nerve. "The goal of the DMA is to change behaviour, not to maximise fines," he said. "I don't think you can judge the willingness or the effectiveness based on the fine imposed on the operator." The priorities, data aggregation, self-preferencing, app store access, remain unchanged. What has changed is the machinery.

The political backdrop

The change of gear coincides with Donald Trump's return to the White House in January 2025. Research by Anselm Küsters at the Centre for European Policy shows Commission decisions and rulings under the DMA rose 18 percent in the months that followed, while formal enforcement decisions fell 37 percent. Stakeholder workshops, a formal channel for complainants to reach case teams, dropped from twelve to four. The Commission disputes the significance of the numbers, insisting enforcement is measured in outcomes, not output statistics drawn from a short window.

Kay Jebelli of the Chamber of Progress, a coalition funded partly by Google and Apple, sees a calculated adjustment. "The Commission has pretty much exhausted established competition theories," he said. "As it ventures further into unknown territory, behavioural interventions like specification decisions and regulatory dialogue will stand on stronger legal footing and face less blowback from the U.S." Trump threatened new tariffs over the Google fine but has not acted. Barry Lynn of the Open Markets Institute suggests the Republican Party's own antagonism toward Google may be a restraint. "It's not their favourite corporation," he said. "A little bit of noise. It won't become a major issue."

Critics see retreat

For the European firms the DMA was designed to help, the new tone feels like abandonment. Felix Styma, who coordinates the Initiative for Neutral Search, a coalition that includes Adevinta and GetYourGuide, describes a collapse of confidence. "The loss of interest is happening. The loss of engagement is happening. The loss of trust in the Commission being a neutral arbiter, it's gone," he said. In his view, the fines are now simply absorbed as operational costs. "It's the price of doing business."

Styma argues that specification proceedings are structurally unsuited to the core problems: search bias, app store gatekeeping, bundling, cloud dominance. "It's a good tool to fix smaller policy problems. But it doesn't affect product design," he said. It also leaves "a super-limited basis for damages claims," weakening the private enforcement track that the DMA was supposed to enable.

Apple and Meta: managed compliance

The Apple file illustrates the new dynamic. After the Commission fined the company €500 million in 2024 for anti-steering rules that prevented developers from directing users to cheaper payment options, Brussels opened a post-decision procedure backed by the threat of periodic penalties up to 5 percent of global daily turnover. That threat has now been lifted. Apple's revised terms, eliminating the per-install fee and adjusting other conditions, were enough for the Commission to signal closure. Gene Burrus, counsel for the Coalition for App Fairness representing Spotify and Epic Games, offered a bleak summary: "Apple didn't really get what it wanted, but nobody else really did either."

Meta's case sits in a similar holding pattern. In November, after regulatory dialogue, the company introduced a third option for European users: neither fully personalised advertising nor a paid subscription, but a less targeted ad experience. The Commission says it is monitoring the uptake. It has not declared itself satisfied, nor has it moved to a non-compliance decision.

National courts step in

As the Commission leans into dialogue, private parties are turning to national courts to enforce the DMA directly. A regional court in Mainz ruled in August 2025 that Google must stop favouring Gmail during Android device setup, applying the regulation without waiting for Brussels. In France, Liligo, a subsidiary of eDreams ODIGEO, filed a claim before the Paris Court of Economic Activities in October targeting Google's alleged self-preferencing in flight search. Other complainants are preparing follow-on damages actions.

De Streel sees potential complementarity. Private litigation can reinforce public enforcement, he argues, but warns against substitution. "It should not become a substitute" for the Commission's leading role. Jebelli expects the litigation wave to grow. "While we may see fewer fines from authorities, expect to still see big numbers in private damages litigation, which is only just ramping up," he said.

A varied toolbox, selectively used

Ricardo Cardoso, the Commission spokesperson, rejects the narrative of retreat. Each fine is set within its legal framework and according to the facts, he said: "It is not meaningful to compare the fines across instrument or company." The DMA hands Brussels "a varied toolbox," and the executive "always uses the tool that is most appropriate in the specific circumstances." Officials point to proceedings opened since November, covering Google's anti-spam policies that demote publisher content, its licensing terms for search data, and Android default settings, as evidence of continued vigour. They also cite Microsoft's quiet agreement last year to drop default browser settings as a product of behind-closed-doors dialogue.

Yet the numbers tell a story of their own. Two and a half years into the DMA, the Commission has fined three companies and opened seven non-compliance proceedings. Two Google cases have concluded; the Apple case is expected to close formally within weeks. The Meta file remains open but static. For a regulation sold as a paradigm shift in platform governance, the scorecard is thin.