Two Investigations, Six Weeks Apart
Within six weeks at the turn of 2026, Switzerland's Competition Commission (COMCO, or Weko in German) opened preliminary investigations into two of Big Tech's most contested pressure points: Apple's near-field communication infrastructure and Microsoft's enterprise licensing prices.
On December 10, 2025, COMCO's Secretariat launched a probe into whether Apple's terms for NFC access on iOS devices comply with Swiss competition law. The investigation asks a narrow but commercially significant question: whether rival mobile payment providers can genuinely compete with Apple Pay for contactless in-store payments in Switzerland, or whether Apple's Swiss-specific access conditions tilt the playing field.
Six weeks later, on January 15, 2026, COMCO opened a preliminary investigation into Microsoft's Microsoft 365 pricing. The authority had received complaints in autumn 2025 about recurring price increases for Microsoft 365 subscriptions — software used by private businesses, cantonal governments, and semi-public institutions across the country. COMCO Director Patrik Ducrey noted the probe would first establish whether Microsoft holds a dominant market position under Swiss law, a prerequisite for any finding of price abuse.
Neither investigation has reached a finding of wrongdoing. At the preliminary stage, COMCO gathers market intelligence to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted. Preliminary investigations in Switzerland typically last around a year.
The Apple Case: Similar to EU, But Legally Distinct
This is not the European Commission's Apple case, and the distinction matters. Switzerland is not a member of the European Economic Area. The commitments Apple made binding in the EU and EEA in July 2024 — providing free, unrestricted NFC access to third-party developers across the bloc — do not automatically apply in Switzerland.
Following COMCO's negotiations with Apple beginning in spring 2024, Apple granted Swiss app developers access to its NFC platform in late 2024. But the conditions Apple attached to Swiss access differ from those it accepted in the EEA. The regulator is now examining whether those divergent terms handicap local payment providers — including Twint, the Swiss banking consortium's contactless payment app, which has criticised Apple's fee structure for NFC usage as creating a structural disadvantage against Apple Pay.
The case for this investigation is genuine. NFC on iOS is gated infrastructure with a single gatekeeper. Apple Pay sits inside that gate with native integration advantages; rivals must negotiate access terms and pay fees that Apple itself does not pay. If Swiss consumers use Apple Pay not because it is better but because competitors are structurally hobbled by access conditions, that is a legitimate competition problem. The counterargument is equally real: Apple voluntarily opened access in Switzerland after bilateral negotiation, without a legal order. The question now turns on the modalities — a contested empirical analysis, not a clear-cut violation.
The Microsoft Investigation: Public-Sector Stakes
The Microsoft probe carries a distinct public-policy dimension. Swiss federal and cantonal administrations are significant Microsoft 365 customers. When enterprise software pricing can be revised unilaterally by a single dominant vendor, and government agencies cannot easily switch, price increases function as an effective levy on public budgets without competitive recourse.
Under the Federal Act on Cartels (SR 251), COMCO must establish dominant or relatively dominant market position before price conduct can be characterised as abusive. That analysis will take time, but the question is real: Microsoft 365 has achieved near-ubiquitous penetration in enterprise and government IT in Switzerland. If that penetration meets the legal threshold for dominance, the Cartel Act's abuse provisions would give COMCO meaningful tools — including potential fines of up to 10 percent of Swiss turnover.
Parliament's December Overhaul
Both investigations unfold against the backdrop of a sweeping reform to the legal framework that governs them. On December 19, 2025, the Federal Assembly voted to adopt a partial revision of the Cartel Act, with entry into force expected no earlier than 2027.
The headline change in merger control is the introduction of the Significant Impediment to Effective Competition (SIEC) test, replacing the older qualified market-dominance standard. SIEC — already standard in EU merger review — enables COMCO to challenge transactions that substantially impede competition even below the threshold of single-firm dominance, making it far better suited to evaluating deals in digital markets where winner-take-all dynamics concentrate power without creating traditional monopolies.
But the revision's most important structural shift may be its effects-based approach to competition agreements. Rather than presuming harm based on the form of a contract, COMCO must now evaluate both qualitative and quantitative evidence of actual or likely market effects. This aligns Switzerland with economically rigorous international standards — and deliberately does not replicate the EU's Digital Markets Act, which designates gatekeeper firms and imposes per-se obligations regardless of demonstrated market impact.
The revision also expands civil enforcement standing to consumers and public authorities — historically excluded from private damages suits — and suspends limitation periods during COMCO investigations and subsequent appeals. That private enforcement layer matters: it creates downstream accountability for anticompetitive conduct that public enforcement budgets cannot guarantee on their own.
Switzerland's Proportionate Bet
Switzerland's emerging approach is assertive without being prescriptive. COMCO is asking the right first-order questions: Does Apple's NFC infrastructure give it a competitive advantage in Switzerland that market forces cannot correct? Does Microsoft hold sufficient market power to render its pricing conduct abusive? These are empirical questions, not presumed answers dressed up as regulatory mandates.
The Cartel Act revision reinforces this posture. Switzerland is not building a DMA-style overlay with mandatory gatekeeper designations. It is equipping its existing competition framework with sharper analytical tools: a better merger standard, broader enforcement standing, and more rigorous effects-based assessment. For a small, open economy that depends on access to global platforms and foreign technology investment, that calibration makes sense. Proportionate enforcement of established market-power principles is compatible with a thriving digital sector. Regulatory sprawl is not.