Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project, and a coalition of 8 other advocacy groups, today sent a letter to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation of Apple’s anticompetitive abuses of dominance as a buyer in electronics supply chains, and specifically the company’s recent exclusive dealing with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

“Apple’s monopolistic bullying extends far beyond the smartphone market,” said Erik Peinert, Research Manager and Editor at the American Economic Liberties Project. “As a dangerously powerful buyer, the company’s exclusive dealing with TSMC is just the tip of the iceberg. For decades, Apple has used its dominant position demand the lowest prices, the thinnest margins, and exclusive terms from suppliers, undermining competition and weakening supply chains for critical technologies, pushing electronics supply chains abroad.”

With a commanding share of various consumer electronics markets, Apple is one of the largest buyers of electronics components in the world. TSMC is the world’s leading silicon chip foundry, fabricating the most advanced chips needed for AI, data centers, smartphone processors, and wireless devices. As reported last summer, as TSMC’s largest customer, Apple has leveraged its buyer power to secure for itself preferential pricing and 100% of TSMC’s supply of the most advanced 3nm chips for a year. This undermines competition, as other manufacturers producing next-generation phones to compete with the iPhone are left using less advanced chips.

Read the full letter here.

Learn more about market structure and competition issues in the semiconductor supply chain from our new whitepaper, “Reshoring and Restoring: CHIPS Implementation for a Competitive Semiconductor Industry.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.