The world’s largest antitrust fine in history could land on Apple’s App Store business. The number is Apple’s own. The company calculated it — then refused to give the CCI the data needed to actually impose it.
The Competition Commission of India holds its final hearing today in a case that began with a 2021 complaint from Indian developers. The allegation: Apple forces every app on every iPhone in India to route payments through its proprietary system, then takes a 15-30% cut. The CCI’s investigators agreed back in July 2024. What’s been happening since is a slow-motion fight over how much Apple has to pay.
Why the CCI’s App Store Case Carries a $38 Billion Price Tag
India amended its Competition Act in 2024 to let the CCI calculate penalties on a company’s global turnover — not just Indian revenue. Apple ran the math on its own FY22, FY23, and FY24 worldwide books and disclosed the maximum exposure in a court filing: roughly ₹3.48 lakh crore. The CCI never named that figure. Apple did.
Then Apple stopped cooperating. It hasn’t submitted financial data or even its formal views since October 2024. The Apple that refuses to hand over financials to the CCI is the same Apple that recently won a different fight in India — Apple pushed back against an Indian government mandate to pre-install Aadhaar. Apple has form when it comes to resisting Indian regulators. In November 2025, it challenged the global-turnover rule as unconstitutional in the Delhi High Court — a parallel case meant to gut the penalty framework before the penalty arrives.
What the Delhi High Court Did Three Days Ago
On May 17-18, the court issued a split order that nobody fully won. Apple was told to “fully cooperate” and hand over the financials within two months. The CCI was told it cannot issue a final ruling before July 15. Today’s hearing happens, but the verdict it was meant to produce is now eight weeks away — at the earliest.
Apple’s antitrust showdown adds to a brutal month for tech in India. OpenAI launched a $4 billion consulting arm targeting Indian IT services, and Nifty IT crashed to a three-year low this month. Now the world’s most valuable company faces the world’s largest potential antitrust fine — from India. The EU fined Apple €500 million in April 2025 for the exact same anti-steering practices. India’s ceiling is roughly 70 times higher — in a market where Apple now assembles a quarter of every iPhone it sells. The country making Apple’s phones is the one threatening its biggest fine.
The CCI case is part of a broader regulatory escalation. India’s new tech regulation framework mandates content labeling and deepfake takedowns, and the Digital India Act proposes replacing the 22-year-old IT Act. Apple isn’t being singled out — India is building a regulatory wall around every major tech company operating in the country.
The hearing is procedural now. The fight is still about the numbers Apple refuses to share — and whether India’s competition commission can actually make the world’s most valuable company pay up for how it runs its App Store.