EU’s Competition Commissioner to hold meetings with Google and Apple in the United States
BRUSSELS: EU cartel chief Margrethe Vestager will meet the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet, Broadcom and Nvidia in the US next week, her communications adviser said on Friday.
The meetings come a month after Vestager returned to her job following her failed bid to head the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank, and antitrust experts expect her to take a tougher line on companies in both merger and competition investigations.
Vestager will meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and its general counsel Kent Walker, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in San Francisco and Palo Alto on Thursday and Friday, her adviser Christina Holm Eiberg said.
He will also meet with OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murat and its strategy director Jason Kwon.
The meetings focus on European digital regulation and competition policy.
The meeting with Cook came as the iPhone maker last year offered competitors access to its tap-to-play mobile payment systems used in mobile wallets in order to resolve Vestager’s investigation and avoid a potentially hefty fine.
The European Commission is likely to seek feedback from competitors and customers this month, although no final decision has been made, people familiar with the matter told Reuters last month.
Vestager’s meeting with Alphabet on January 11 comes on the same day that an adviser to Europe’s highest court is due to issue a non-binding recommendation on whether judges should accept or reject Alphabet unit Google’s appeal of a 2.42 billion euro ($2.6 billion) E.U. . antitrust fine for market abuse related to its purchase service.
