The Competition Commission of India can now slap fines of up to 10 per cent on a company’s global take, which for the outfit from Cupertino would sit at roughly $38bn. Job’s Mob claimed this sort of calculation would be “manifestly arbitrary, unconstitutional, grossly disproportionate, and unjust.” After all, that might be the sort of fine that actually hurts the company rather than one that can be shrugged off.

The Fruity Cargo Cult wants the Delhi High Court to bin the law and insists that any penalties should be based solely on the Indian revenue of the part of the business accused of wrongdoing. For those who came in late, Apple has been embroiled in an antitrust row in India since 2022, after Match and several Indian start-ups accused it of unfair behaviour in its app store.

The CCI produced two reports last year, saying Job’s Mob had engaged in “abusive conduct and practices” by forcing developers to use its in-app purchase system. However, the reports had to be recalled because they contained confidential information. That muddle added months of delay and left the case with no final ruling and no penalty so far. The company maintains that everything it has done is squeaky clean and says its share of the Indian smartphone market is tiny because Android rules the roost.

Job’s Mob said in its latest filing that the CCI used the global turnover rule on 10 November in a different case and fined a company for an offence committed 10 years earlier. It claimed it had “no choice but to bring this constitutional challenge now” to avoid any retrospective clobbering.

Match argued that a steep fine based on global turnover would stop giants repeating their antitrust tricks, which sounds reasonable enough. Apple’s plea lands in court on 3 December, and if Jobs’ Mob avoids breaking the rules, it should not have to worry about losing that much cash anyway, should it?