Apple Loses Bid to Stall India Antitrust Probe Report

India’s antitrust regulator has reportedly rejected Apple’s bid to suspend an investigative report.

That means that the case against the iPhone maker can continue, Reuters reported Sunday (Nov. 24), citing an internal order from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

The initial report found that Apple had violated India’s competition laws, but the CCI recalled its reports after Apple said the regulator had disclosed trade secrets — which should have been redacted — to its rivals. The CCI asked the parties involved to return the reports and destroy any copies before issuing new reports.

But the internal order, Reuters said, showed that Apple had alleged that the chief complainant in the antitrust probe — Indian nonprofit Together We Fight Society (TWFS) — had not shown that it had destroyed the old reports.

Apple asked the CCI to take action against TWFS, but CCI’s order said that the company’s request to hold the investigation report in abeyance was deemed untenable.

The initial CCI investigation found that Apple exploited its dominant place in the market for app stores on its iOS operating system, harming app developers, users and other payment processors.

Apple has denied wrongdoing and said its presence in India is vastly overshadowed by phones using Google’s Android system.

The case is happening as Apple faces antitrust probes in markets around the world. For example, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said last week that it could begin a formal investigation into whether the company’s mobile ecosystem policy was “holding back innovation.”

“Markets work best when rival businesses are able to develop and bring innovative options to consumers,” Margot Daly, chair of the CMA’s independent inquiry group, said in the release. “Through our investigation, we have provisionally found that competition between different mobile browsers is not working well and this is holding back innovation in the U.K.”

Apple said in a statement to PYMNTS that it believes in “thriving and dynamic markets,” that it faces competition everywhere it operates and that it disagrees with the CMA’s findings.

Meanwhile, Apple last week asked a federal judge to dismiss the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust suit that accuses the company of holding an illegal smartphone monopoly.

The government has accused Apple of preventing rivals from accessing its devices’ software and hardware, thus making it harder for consumers to switch phones.

Apple has denied that it holds a monopoly, arguing in court earlier this year that it is not required to give software developers any more access to iPhones than they already get.

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