The General Court of the European Union on Wednesday dismissed Apple's challenges to three European Commission decisions designating the company as a "gatekeeper" under the Digital Markets Act, preserving a cornerstone of the EU's effort to rein in Big Tech.

The court rejected Apple's bid to partly annul its 2023 designation covering iOS, Safari and the App Store — a status that requires the company to gradually open parts of its ecosystem to rivals. Apple had also asked the Luxembourg-based court to erase the Commission's findings on iMessage, even though Brussels ultimately declined to designate the messaging service under the law.

For regulators, the biggest win came on procedure. The judges held that Apple was trying to contest obligations that flow from its gatekeeper designation rather than the designation itself.

The DMA's interoperability provision, the judges said, "does not govern the conditions for designating an undertaking as a gatekeeper, the assessment of which is the main subject of the designation decision, but merely defines the interoperability obligations to which that undertaking is subject only once such designation has occurred."

Apple also failed in its attempt to treat the App Stores for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV as separate services. The court found that the different devices do not change the stores' essential role of connecting app developers with users.

"The commission was therefore correct in considering that each of the App Stores was used for the same purpose and that they could therefore be regarded as a single CPS (Core Platform Service)," the judges wrote.

What it means for practitioners

The ruling establishes a clear sequencing rule for future DMA litigation. Companies cannot challenge the act's interoperability obligations until the Commission actually applies those rules through a later enforcement decision — meaning the substantive legality of the DMA's most controversial obligations remains untested for now, and challenges must be framed against specific enforcement decisions rather than the underlying designation. The same logic applies to market investigations: findings that do not impose new obligations, such as the Commission's iMessage analysis, produce no binding legal effects and cannot support an annulment action on their own.

Assimakis Komninos, a competition law partner at White & Case in Brussels, said the judgment sets out a clear sequence for future DMA cases. "It's premature," he said, summing up the court's message.

Pierre Larouche, chair of Law and Innovation at Université de Montréal, said the court left Apple's biggest legal arguments waiting for another day. Rather than deciding whether those objections had merit, the court found Apple was not yet entitled to raise them.

"The refusal to entertain Apple's arguments against the DMA's interoperability obligations means that these arguments will come back in another case," Larouche said.

On iMessage, the judges applied the same procedural logic. Although the Commission investigated whether Apple's messaging service should be designated, it ultimately declined to do so, meaning Apple faced no new legal obligations tied to iMessage.

"Thus, the contested finding in those decisions does not produce binding legal effects capable of bringing about a distinct change in Apple's legal position," the court wrote.

Komninos said that outcome was hardly surprising, because Apple was objecting to the Commission's reasoning rather than a decision that changed its legal position, making the iMessage appeals "pretty clear" cases for dismissal.

Larouche, however, questioned how narrowly the court approached the issue. While the ruling may help prevent a flood of DMA lawsuits, he said, it also postpones answers to important legal questions by limiting when companies can challenge the Commission's reasoning.

Alba Ribera Martínez, an assistant professor in law and technology at VU Amsterdam, said the reasoning could have consequences well beyond Apple. "I think this approach is quite dangerous," she said, warning it could mean "none of the decisions closing market investigations under the DMA could be appealed before the courts."

She also argued the judges paid too little attention to whether the Commission's classification of iMessage could still shape Apple's position under other areas of EU telecommunications law, even without triggering DMA obligations.

Broader DMA enforcement picture

The ruling preserves one of the EU's most ambitious efforts to curb the power of digital gatekeepers. Alongside Apple, the Commission has designated Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Booking under the act, requiring them to loosen restrictions around app stores, browsers, search, advertising data and interoperability.

The law has already produced fines. In April 2025, the Commission imposed its first penalties under the act, ordering Apple to pay 500 million euros (about $570 million) over App Store steering restrictions and Meta 200 million euros (about $230 million) over its advertising model. TikTok's owner ByteDance is separately challenging its gatekeeper designation before the Court of Justice.

Agustín Reyna, director general of the European Consumer Organisation, welcomed the judgment. "It is good news that the EU court confirmed that Apple is a gatekeeper," Reyna said. "Anything less would have jeopardized the positive impact the Digital Markets Act is having in creating more choice for consumers online." He added that Apple's efforts would be better spent complying with the DMA "in full and without delay."

A European Commission spokesperson said Brussels would study the judgment before deciding on next steps. "This is an important step for the enforcement of the DMA and for the pursuit of more contestability and fairness in digital markets," the spokesperson said.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement distributed to AFP and other media outlets, the company said it "firmly believe[s] the DMA's mandate goes beyond what is lawful and proportionate, threatening to erode decades of privacy and security protections we've built and leaving our users vulnerable to new risks." It added that it would "continue advocating for the innovation and privacy our European customers deserve."

Wednesday's ruling is unlikely to be Apple's last word on the DMA. The company can still appeal to the Court of Justice, while separate disputes over how the interoperability rules apply to its products are already working their way through the EU courts.