The UK’s Competition and Market’s Authority hopes to determine whether Apple’s practices are anti-competitive

UK regulators have launched a new antitrust investigation into Apple’s App Store, according to an announcement from Britain’s Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA) on Thursday.

The UK will investigate the terms developers must agree to when they build software for Apple’s App store, along with the commission they pay to Apple for in-app purchases. The UK’s CMA hopes to determine whether Apple’s practices are anti-competitive.

Millions of us use apps every day to check the weather, play a game or order a takeaway. So, complaints that Apple is using its market position to set terms which are unfair or may restrict competition and choice – potentially causing customers to lose out when buying and using apps – warrant careful scrutiny, Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive of the CMA, said in a statement posted online Thursday morning.

Our ongoing examination into digital markets has already uncovered some worrying trends, Coscelli continued. We know that businesses, as well as consumers, may suffer real harm if anti-competitive practices by big tech go unchecked. That’s why we’re pressing on with setting up the new Digital Markets Unit and launching new investigations wherever we have grounds to do so.

The UK’s antitrust investigation sounds similar to the EU’s recently announced investigation, and the CMA’s press release even acknowledges that fact. One imagines the UK will need to double up investigations like this after leaving the bloc, which has made British consumers more vulnerable in any number of ways.

However, the UK has far less leverage against Apple, as it’s out of the EU now, if it really wants to impose penalties against the tech giant. Australia, which has recently squared off against large tech companies like Facebook and Google, can tell the UK all about the challenges of being a smaller country trying to fight big tech.