A fine of $1.23 billion has been imposed on Apple by the French authorities. Apple suffered the fine for anti-competitive behavior in its distribution network and for misusing the economic dependence of its independent resellers.
The French authorities came to a decision after years of investigation in the matter. Two Apple wholesalers including Tech Data and Ingram Micro were also fined $84.2 million and $69 million respectively. Both the companies got fined because they agreed to term and conditions which were toxic for other small level distributors.
Authorities said, “Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products“.
Apple’s Take
As per the report by CNBC, an official from tech giant Apple has clearly said that the decision made by the French competition authorities is a ‘disheartening’. He added that the fine has been imposed on the basis of practices from over a decade ago and the decision of the French authorities would likely create commotion in the industry. He concluded his statement by saying that the tech giant will surely appeal against the decision.
This is not for the first time that Apple has been fined by the French authorities. In February 2020, a fine of $27.9 million was imposed on Apple. The reason behind the fine was that Apple throttled the performance of older iPhones without even informing the users.
However, the fine imposed on Apple this time is going to be the biggest sum ever imposed by the French authorities. In 2019, Apple acknowledged that it will be paying back $571 million to France as taxes. Soon the tech giant has to deal with another issue raised by the European Union, to introduce common charging ports for all products.
