Next week, in the US, Apple, Alphabet, Broadcom, and Nvidia CEOs will meet with EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager.

The discussions take place one month after Vestager returned to work after her unsuccessful attempt to lead the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg.

Antitrust experts anticipate that Vestager would take a more aggressive stance against businesses in both merger and competition inquiries.

According to her advisor Christina Holm Eiberg, Vestager will meet with CEOs of Apple, Alphabet, and Nvidia on Thursday and Friday in San Francisco and Palo Alto. She will also meet with CEOs of Broadcom, Hock Tan, and Nvidia, Jensen Huang.

The discussion with Tim Cook follows Apple's December pledge to allow competitors to use the tap-to-pay feature in iPhones in response to an antitrust probe by EU regulators. The decision to make Apple Wallet available to more people was taken in an effort to end Vestager's probe and avoid potentially paying a significant fine. However, this month the European Commission is probably going to ask for input from competitors and clients.

Additionally, she will meet Jason Kwon, the chief strategy officer of OpenAI, and Mira Murati, the chief technology officer.

The meetings' main topics will be competition policy and digital regulation in Europe.

The discussion with Cook coincides with the iPhone maker's previous year offer to let competitors access to its tap-and-go mobile wallet payment systems in an attempt to end Vestager's inquiry and avoid a potentially large fine.

On the same day that Vestager and Alphabet are meeting, on January 11, a non-binding advisory panel to the European Court of Justice is expected to provide a recommendation regarding the acceptance or rejection of Alphabet subsidiary Google's appeal against a 2.62-billion-euro ($2.6 billion) EU antitrust fine for engaging in market dominance connected to its shopping service.

The European Commission fined Google 2.42 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in 2017 after finding that the company had obstructed competitors to its shopping comparison service. Google started its appeal against the 2.42 billion euro fine in February 2020, but it was unsuccessful in November 2021 when the EU's General Court in Luxembourg dismissed Google's appeal of the antitrust fine. Google started its final-ditch attempt to get the EU antitrust fine overturned in the Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, in September 20023.