DOJ official favors settlements over trials, putting Apple and Visa cases in new light

The Department of Justice has a preference for settling antitrust cases rather than fighting them out in court, and that posture is now casting a long shadow over active litigation against Apple and Visa.

Two big cases, one new lens

The DOJ filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple on March 21, 2024, joined by 16 states. The government’s core allegation is that Apple illegally maintained monopoly power over the smartphone market through a series of restrictive practices tied to the iPhone ecosystem.

Six months later, on September 24, 2024, the DOJ turned its attention to Visa, accusing the payments giant of monopolizing the debit card market through exclusionary contracts that effectively blocked rival platforms, including Apple Pay, from gaining meaningful ground.

Visa’s legal team tried to get the case thrown out. That attempt failed in June 2025, when a motion to dismiss was denied. Fact discovery has not yet begun, and no trial date has been set for the Visa matter.

The 90% rule and what it means

The DOJ Antitrust Division has historically resolved roughly 90% of its cases through consent decrees rather than trials. A consent decree is essentially a negotiated agreement where the company doesn’t admit wrongdoing, the government gets some behavioral commitments or structural changes, and both sides avoid the expense, unpredictability, and years of appeals that come with a full trial.

Apple’s case involves accusations of deliberately limiting interoperability, restricting third-party apps, and using the iPhone’s market position to disadvantage competitors across adjacent markets. Visa’s case centers on contracts and incentive structures designed to lock merchants and banks into Visa’s debit network while making it economically painful to route transactions elsewhere.

What investors should watch

A consent decree for Apple could mean mandated changes to App Store policies, interoperability requirements, or restrictions on how it bundles services with hardware. Visa’s debit market allegations, if resolved through a consent decree, could require changes to the exclusive or near-exclusive contracts it holds with financial institutions and merchants.

The DOJ’s settlement preference also has a subtler market implication: it suggests the current administration is more interested in achieving concrete behavioral changes than in securing landmark legal precedents.

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