Apple subpoenas Samsung records

Apple is now trying to pull Samsung’s internal records out of South Korea for a United States antitrust case that started with the government suing Apple in March 2024. The request covers Samsung’s smartphone, smartwatch, and Galaxy Store business, which means Apple wants a rival’s own paperwork to help defend the iPhone. (9to5mac.com) This is happening in the evidence-gathering stage, when both sides demand documents instead of arguing the final merits. Apple first subpoenaed Samsung Electronics America, and Samsung’s United States arm replied that the records Apple wanted were held by the South Korean parent company instead. (9to5mac.com) So Apple asked a United States court for a formal “letter of request” under the Hague Evidence Convention, which is the treaty courts use when evidence sits in another country. Apple told the court its request is narrow and tied to specific categories like internal business reports, market analysis, and switching data. (9to5mac.com) (macrumors.com) The government’s case is much bigger than one App Store rule. The Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general sued Apple on March 21, 2024, saying Apple used control over the iPhone to make it harder for people to switch phones and harder for rivals to build competing apps and services. (justice.gov 1) (justice.gov 2) The complaint says Apple blocked or weakened products that could make an iPhone owner less dependent on Apple, including rival smartwatches, digital wallets, cloud gaming, messaging, and broad all-in-one apps sometimes called super apps. In plain English, the government says Apple did not just build a popular phone; it built walls around the phone after customers were inside. (justice.gov) (macrumors.com) Samsung matters because it is the clearest large-scale alternative to Apple in premium phones, watches, and app distribution. If Apple can show Samsung’s own data says people switch between iPhone and Android more than the government claims, or that Samsung competes effectively without Apple opening more of iOS, that helps Apple attack the monopoly story at its foundation. (9to5mac.com) (androidauthority.com) That is why a fight over files in Seoul can matter in a courtroom in New Jersey. Antitrust cases often turn on ordinary-seeming documents like market-share spreadsheets, board presentations, and reports about why customers leave one brand for another. (9to5mac.com) The timing also says something about how slowly these cases move. Apple lost its attempt to end the case early, discovery is still expanding in April 2026, and outside coverage has said a trial may not arrive until 2028 or later. (9to5mac.com) (macrumors.com) At the same moment, the Department of Justice’s antitrust division is losing senior courtroom lawyers. Bloomberg Tax reported on April 8, 2026 that the division’s top civil antitrust litigator and three senior trial attorneys tied to cases involving Live Nation, Apple, and Google are leaving, after earlier leadership turmoil that included Gail Slater’s exit. (news.bloombergtax.com) So the immediate story is a subpoena fight with Samsung, but the deeper story is that Apple is trying to use a rival’s internal math to rebut a monopoly case that could reshape how the iPhone works. Two years after the complaint was filed, the argument is still moving outward, from California and New Jersey all the way to South Korea. (macrumors.com) (9to5mac.com)