Apple received a record high antitrust penalty from France

The French competition watchdog (Autorite de la Concurrence) recently fined Apple $ 1.2 billion for violating competition laws and imposing unfair restrictions on wholesale businesses.

Accordingly, because of alleged anti-competitive behavior, Apple is currently facing the highest penalty penalty ever made by the authorities.

Two Apple wholesale businesses – Tech Data and Ingram Micro – were also found to have agreed with the prices that Apple offered illegally, and each was fined more than $ 65 million.

An investigation was conducted in 2012, after a complaint was filed in court by reseller eBizcuss.com, which is no longer active.

Judgment for Apple

According to the French authorities, Apple and two wholesalers have established an illegal agreement to avoid competition with each other, in which the company tries to prevent resellers from lowering the price of the product, while limiting it. supply of high-end resellers.

These moves have created a synergistic effect, helping to ” purify the wholesale market for Apple products “, according to Autorite de la Concurrence.

Apple called the punishment ” a boring thing ” and suggested that many other companies were making similar moves across France without problems.

” This decision involves moves from more than a decade ago and threw away 30 years of legal precedent that every company in France relies on through an order that could make companies in every industry. “The industry is in turmoil, ” Apple said.

Last month, the software giant was fined a relatively modest sum of $ 27.8 million by the French government for allegedly downgrading iPhone batteries – according to the authorities. commercial fraud . ”

Apple confirmed it will appeal the latest verdict as soon as the opportunity.

Reference: TechRadar