Apple Loses $113 Billion In Market Value As Regulators Close In

In the US, the Justice Department and 16 attorneys general are suing the iPhone maker for violating antitrust laws.Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are training their eyes on Apple Inc., unnerving investors with fears over fines and threatening its market dominance.In the US, the Justice Department and 16 attorneys general are suing the iPhone maker for violating antitrust laws. And in Europe, the company is said to be facing probes about whether it’s complying with the region’s Digital Markets Act.Shares of the company slid 4.1% Thursday, erasing about $113 billion in market value and taking their year-to-date loss back to 11%. Once the world’s most valuable firm at more than $3 trillion, Apple has underperformed both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P 500 in 2024.It’s not the first time Apple is coming under regulatory scrutiny. The company and its peers have for years faced accusations of enriching themselves by suppressing competitors. But as Apple’s products have grown ever-more popular and established themselves as part of daily life around the world, authorities have also become more combative and wary of its power.The American suit, filed Thursday in New Jersey federal court, accuses Apple of blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its popular devices. The potential investigations in Europe, which are also targeting some of Apple’s rivals, will focus on the firm’s new fees, terms and conditions for app store developers.There comes a point in which the downpour of cases and scrutiny that comes with them become a real drag on how these companies operate,” said Bill Kovacic, an antitrust professor at George Washington University Law School. “Even if they win, in an important way they’ve lost.”Apple fired back at the US lawsuit by calling it “wrong on the facts and the law.” It warned that the action would “set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology” and vowed to “vigorously defend against it.” The company didn’t respond to a request for comment on the potential European probes.