India's regulator rejects Apple's (AAPL.US) plea, antitrust probe continues

India's antitrust regulator, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), has rejected Apple Inc's (AAPL.US) request to suspend an investigation into alleged violations of competition law, allowing the antitrust probe against Apple to continue. The case stems from CCI's investigation into Apple's dominance in the iOS app store market, which found it may have harmed app developers, users and other payment processors. Apple had sought to suspend the probe, citing the alleged leak of confidential business information to competitors, but CCI did not accept the request.Specifically, CCI had ordered the recall of the investigation report in August, after Apple claimed the regulator had disclosed its confidential business information to competitors including Match, the owner of dating app Tinder. CCI then asked all parties to return the report and destroy all copies, and issued a new report.However, in November, Apple accused the main complainant, the Indian non-profit organization "Together We Fight Society" (TWFS), of failing to comply with the directive to destroy the old investigation report, and asked CCI to take action against it and withhold the modified report. But CCI said in an internal order that Apple's request to suspend the investigation report lacked reasonable grounds.Apple declined to comment on the matter, while CCI and TWFS did not provide comments outside of normal working hours.Notably, CCI found in its investigation that Apple may have used its market dominance to harm multiple parties, but Apple denied any wrongdoing and emphasized that it was a small company in the Indian market, while Google's Android phones dominated the Indian market.Moreover, CCI also asked Apple to submit audited financial statements for multiple fiscal years under regulatory guidelines to determine the possible fine amount. Ultimately, CCI's senior officials will review the investigation report and make a decision on the case.