The US Justice Department and sixteen state and district attorneys have sued tech giant Apple. With this new antitrust lawsuit, the complainants have accused Apple of having an illegal monopoly in the smartphone industry.
Updated October 2026. This March 2024 report now includes the main developments in the case since it was filed, including the June 2025 ruling that allowed it to proceed and reported settlement talks in 2026.
The civil complaint filed in the New Jersey District Court accuses the company of suppressing developers and other rivals in order to eradicate competition.
The federal lawsuit directly targets the company’s most popular product, that is, the iPhone. The iPhone has been central to Apple’s growth, which had pushed the company’s market value above $2.7 trillion at the time of the filing.
The lawsuit, which consists of 88 pages, states:
Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly.
The cumulative effect of this course of conduct has been to maintain and entrench Apple’s smartphone monopoly at the expense of the users, developers, and other third parties who helped make the iPhone what it is today,
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice said that in order to keep consumers purchasing iPhones, Apple has indulged in a competition that is unethical and illegal. The company blocks cross-platform messaging apps and limits the compatibility of third-party wallet apps and smartwatches. It also negatively impacts non-app store programs and cloud streaming services.
This alleges that Apple’s anti-competitive measures are not only limited to the iPhone and Apple Watch but also to their advertising, browser, and FaceTime features. Soon after the suit was filed, the company’s shares fell by over 4%.
Apple, in response, denied all the accusations made by the US government, according to Reuters.
This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets. If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect,
the company said.
Case Updates (as of October 2026)
June 2025: US District Judge Xavier Neals in New Jersey denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing it to move forward, the Associated Press reported. The AP said the judge set a timetable that could see the case come to trial in 2027. Apple said the case “is wrong on the facts and the law” and that it would continue to fight it in court.
July 2026: Bloomberg reported that Apple and the Justice Department were in early discussions about settling the case, with no guarantee of an agreement and no trial date set. By then, according to Bloomberg, the case was being pursued alongside 19 states and the District of Columbia.
Discovery disputes: In July 2026, retired federal judge Jose Linares, serving as special discovery master, declined the government’s bid to stop Apple from seeking documents from 14 federal agencies about how they buy smartphones, 9to5Mac reported. The Justice Department asked him to reconsider. The case remains pending, and we will update this article as it develops.
