French hit Apple with huge fine
APPLE has been hit with a 1.2 billion euro ($A2.2 billion) fine for breaking French competition law.
France’s anti-trust authority handed the tech giant the record penalty for abusing its power over resellers to prevent discounting of its gadgets.
The watchdog said that Apple had been guilty of anticompetitive behaviour through a secret deal with two key distributors of its products.
The unprecedented fine comes as scrutiny of America’s technology giants escalates across the world. Regulators and policymakers are looking to rein in Silicon Valley, accusing firms of stifling competitors, facilitating the spread of disinformation, failing to safeguard users’ privacy and paying too little tax.
Europe has been at the forefront of efforts to clip the wings of the industry. In 2016 the European Commission ordered Ireland to recover 13 billion euros of underpaid tax from Apple in a ruling that has been challenged by the iPhone maker and the Dublin government.
Google has been fined more than 8 billion euros for three separate breaches of the bloc’s anti-trust rules. Like Apple, it is appealing against the ruling.
In its decision on Monday, France’s competition watchdog said Apple had colluded with two wholesalers of its products to ensure that retailers did not undercut the prices charged by the US giant in its own shops and on its website.
The effect was to raise prices on iPads and personal computers for about half the French retail market. The iPhone was not affected.
The watchdog said the breaches occurred between 2005 and 2017 and first came to light in 2012 when eBizcuss, an independent reseller, made a complaint.
Apple sells its hardware through a network of stores and its website, but in France it relies on about 2000 independent retailers, which buy stock from wholesalers or directly from Apple.
“The resellers are independent businesses and must be allowed the freedom to determine their commercial strategy, such as what products to sell, how much and what supplier to choose,” the regulator said.
It accused the US company and the two wholesalers of preventing independent stores from competing with Apple through their tight control of prices.
Apple vowed to appeal against the watchdog’s ruling, which it said was at odds with legal precedent in France.