The European Commission on Monday accused Apple of violating European competition laws regarding the use of the Apple Pay digital payment system. Specifically, the Commission accused Apple of abuse of dominant position, because it would have prevented developers of payment services competing with Apple Pay from using the standard technology called “Near-Field Communication (NFC)” on their devices and used mainly for payments. “Contactless”.
This technology allows – among other things – to make payments in stores simply by bringing the phone close to the POS. In the case of Apple's mobile devices (iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch), the only service that can be used to make contactless payments is Apple Pay, because Apple blocks all others from accessing NFC functions: according to the Commission this would be a violation of Article 104 of the TFEU (the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) which prohibits “the abusive exploitation by one or more companies of a dominant position on the internal market”.
