French Antitrust Hits Apple with $1.2 Billion

[upnorth]

Content source

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/apple-fined-1-2-billion-for-anti-competitive-behavior-in-france/

Apple has been fined $1.2 billion by a French antitrust watchdog for anticompetitive activities.

It is the largest fine ever processed by France’s antitrust regulators, and it follows eight years of preparation on the part of the watchdog. The decision involves not just Apple but two wholesalers named Tech Data and Ingram Micro, which were fined 76 million and 63 million, respectively.

The regulator claims Apple and the two retail resellers agreed not to compete and worked to ensure that the resellers charged prices that did not undercut Apple’s prices in its own stores, online or physical. It says that Apple “abusively exploited” distributors’ dependence on it to force outcomes that were optimal for Apple but anticompetitive in the marketplace. And further, the watchdog claims that Apple limited supply of products to resellers to its own stores’ advantage.