EU slaps Apple with €500m fine

Good morning. Here's what happened overnight and what you need to know today.

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1.

Unfair competition: The EU will fine Apple around €500 million ($827 million) for allegedly breaking EU law over access to its music streaming services. According to unnamed sources cited by the Financial Times, the fine is the culmination of the Commission’s antitrust probe into whether the tech giant used its own platform to favour its own services over others. The fine is expected to be announced in March. While Apple has not previously been fined for antitrust infringements by the European regulator, in 2020 France penalised the company €1.1 billion for alleged anti-competitive behaviour. (Financial Times)

2.

Ukraine losses: Russia has made its biggest gain in nine months, announcing it has taken full control of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka following the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops. The fall of Avdiivka comes almost two years to the day since Putin triggered a full scale war and ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's defence ministry said its troops had advanced 8.6km in that part of the 1,000km front line, and that its soldiers were pressing forward. The White House said the withdrawal had been forced upon Ukraine "by dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction," that had forced Ukrainian soldiers to ration ammunition. A US military aid package has been delayed by Republican congressional opposition for months. (Reuters)

3.

Chinese spending: Lunar New Year travel and spending in China exceeded pre-pandemic levels this year. 474 million tourist trips were made around the country during the festival which concluded on Saturday. The numbers show a 19% increase from the comparable period in 2019, and total tourism spending for the holiday climbed nearly 8% from that year on a comparable basis, to 633 billion yuan. China is looking for signs of new momentum as a property slump, weak confidence and deflationary pressures continue to hamper the country’s economy. (Bloomberg)

4.

Navalny death: The body of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, has been located. Russian officials said that the Kremlin critic died on Friday after falling ill while on a short walk at IK-3, a brutal prison where he was being held in the Russian Arctic. His body was found in the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital’s morgue, nearby the prison. An unnamed paramedic told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper that bruises found on Navalny’s head and chest “appear from seizures […] The person convulses, they try to restrain him, and bruises appear. They also said that he also had a bruise on his chest. That is, they still tried to resuscitate him, and he died, most likely, from cardiac arrest.” Russian officials have denied any wrongdoing tied to Navalny’s death. (The Times)

5.

Substance over form: A senior banker told a Frankfurt court that Morgan Stanley manufactured his job title to trick European regulators into believing the bank had moved top staff to Frankfurt in order to comply with post-Brexit rules. The banker joined MS in Frankfurt as an executive director in 2021 on a salary of €375,000 plus bonus, and was formally given the title of “head of loan trading.” During the trial he said his superior told him that the title “only existed on paper” and had been created solely to meet regulatory requirements. The court was hearing an appeal about his dismissal from the bank in December when the allegations were made. (Financial Times)

6.

Energy sell-off: Macquarie has teamed up with another shareholder to sell a combined £1.3 billion stake in Cadent, the largest gas network in the UK, as it prepares for the renewable energy transition. Macquarie wants to sell down 5% of its 26% stake in the business, according to sources cited by the Financial Times. US-based Federated Hermes is reportedly also looking to sell a 4.6% stake. The sale is likely to test investor appetite for gas infrastructure as Britain works to reduce its use of natural gas to reach net zero by 2050. (Financial Times)

7.

Battle for the skies: The first airliner manufactured by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), China’s challenger to Airbus and Boeing, has made its debut flight outside Chinese territory at the Singapore Airshow. The country has invested heavily in manufacturing the C919 aircraft in attempts to disrupt the dominance of the two Western plane makers, and plans to advance the C919 and COMAC’s footprint internationally. Currently, the C919 is only certified within China, and the first of now four C919s began flying with China Eastern Airlines last year. (Reuters)

8.

Equal and opposite reaction: The energy industry has pushed back against a government proposal to seek temporary extensions for power station closures, arguing it would disincentivise renewable energy investment. The Australian Energy Market Operator anticipates that all traditional generators will exit the system in the next 15 years, but developers are struggling to build enough replacements as a result of difficulty securing access, cost blowouts and local community opposition. The government’s Orderly Exit Management (OEM) Framework seeks to address the risks threatened by a lack of sufficient replacements, however the Australian Energy Council, wants a reassessment of the Framework as it would threaten the investment signals for renewable energy investment. (The Australian)