Apple lost its appeal against the competition regulation in Germany, paving the way for tighter scrutiny to be applied to the company. The US technology giant Apple lost its appeal against a regulation in Germany that brings stricter competition scrutiny. The German Federal Cartel Office classified Apple as a very important company for cross-market competition, aiming to impose stricter competition scrutiny on Apple to ban anti-competitive behavior at an earlier stage. Apple had appealed to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Germany against this. The court, in its decision today, confirmed Apple’s significant role in market competition and supported the German Cartel Office’s classification of Apple as a company of great market importance for competition in 2023. Andreas Mundt, President of the German Federal Cartel Office, welcomed the decision of the BGH, saying: “This means that the highest court has approved that Apple is subject to stricter abuse control. Therefore, our ongoing examination of monitoring regulations for third-party applications has a solid foundation. We are working hard on this case and other cases against major internet companies.” In January 2022, the German Federal Cartel Office classified Google’s parent company, Alphabet, as very important for competition across the market. In May 2022, Meta, the owner of Facebook, and in July 2022, Amazon, were also included in this classification.