Q&A with Spotify's chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez on its problems with Apple, potential fixes, the Epic vs Apple lawsuit, EU vs US policy, and more
Context & Ripple Effects
This Q&A lands at the center of Spotify's multi-year legal offensive against Apple: Horacio Gutierrez is the executive running that campaign on both sides of the Atlantic, arguing Apple abuses its App Store control to disadvantage rivals like Spotify Music — a role Bloomberg would soon profile in depth in its coverage of the campaign against Apple in the US and EU. The interview also ties Spotify's grievance to the broader Epic v. Apple court fight and to the growing gap between EU and US regulatory approaches.
First-order effects
- Gutierrez publicly frames Spotify's App Store complaints as a policy problem needing legislative fixes rather than a negotiation with Apple, putting direct pressure on both Apple and US/EU lawmakers reading the interview.
Second-order effects
- Spotify's advocacy aligns it with Epic's litigation and coalitions like the Coalition for App Fairness — until Gutierrez's own departure to Disney removes the coalition's most effective advocate, testing whether the movement survives without him.
Third-order effects
- The EU-vs-US split Gutierrez discusses hardens into the pattern behind Spotify's later verdict that Apple's DMA compliance plan was "unacceptable" — regulation, not lawsuits, becomes the decisive arena for app-store reform, as seen in Spotify's rejection of Apple's DMA plan.
The trend: App-store disputes are migrating from courtroom battles like Epic v. Apple toward EU-style platform regulation, where companies like Spotify expect structural fixes rather than negotiated concessions.