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France: Apple must accept further compensation payment

Apple has to take another record fine. This time, however, the prosecutor is not in the USA, but in France. The company is now to pay a total of 1.1 billion euros in fines to the French state. The reason for this is a violation of French competition law.

Anticompetitive behaviour by Apple

The heavy fine is a reminder of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour towards retail partners and distributors. In particular, the large IT group is alleged to have committed various anti-competitive violations and, in addition, to have engaged in illegal price fixing. .

common practice of Apple

However, the punished behavior is not a slip of the iPhone inventor. It is rather a common practice of Apple, which has been known for some time. For example, the company sets sales prices for its certified retailers. This applies not only to iPhones and iPads, but also to Macs. This means that the dealers cannot issue special offers of their own accord. After all, Apple ensures an extremely low margin. These requirements are a clear violation of French antitrust law. Consequently, it was to be expected that sooner or later Apple would face legal consequences.

Reason for the court decision

The reasoning of the French court sounds plausible. Due to the fact that Apple set a price for its dealers, the antitrust law was clearly violated. The reason for the entrepreneurial specification was allegedly an alignment with the price of apple.com. But Apple was not the only one to receive a fine from the French. The wholesalers Ingram Micro and Tech Data also had to pay severe fines. Ingram Micro had to pay 63 million and Tech Data 76 million fines.

Appointment already announced

Apple has slowly lost its reputation as the king of fines. This will certainly be one reason why the company has already announced that it will appeal. The chances are not so bad for the company, as Reuters reports. After all, there is said to be a precedent case in France which would save Apple from a fine. However, should Apple not be successful, this would not only have economic consequences for the group. After all, the ruling is also very damaging to the company’s reputation. Above all, Apple’s premium dealers are unlikely to be happy about a final judgment. </span

Additional penalty for throttling iPhones

This is not the first legal dispute between France and the California-based company. Not long ago, the French consumer watchdog had received a fine from Apple. Apple had to pay the proud sum of 25 million euros because they were suspected of throttling their iPhones by deliberately releasing new operating systems. Although this fine was already high, the new fine represents a record. It is the highest fine ever imposed by a French authority.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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