2023-07-18 17:43:15
The Spanish competition authority fined the US giants Apple and Amazon a total of 194 million euros (218 million dollars) on Tuesday for “restricting competition” in the distribution of Apple brand products by Amazon. Spain.
The two groups “agreed to include a series of clauses in the contracts that regulate the conditions” for the distribution of Apple products by Amazon that resulted in a restriction of competition, the National Commission for Markets and Competition justified in a statement. Spanish (CNMC).
These practices, according to the CNMC, derive from two contracts signed in October 2018 with the aim of “changing the sales dynamics of Apple products on the Amazon website in Spain”, and which penalized both Apple’s competitors and some resellers of apple brand products.
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Thanks to these clauses, “only a series of distributors designated by Apple itself could sell Apple brand products through the Amazon website in Spain,” the body in charge of ensuring competition law details in its statement. in the country.
In addition, these agreements “limited the possibility that brands competing with Apple could acquire advertising space on the Amazon website in Spain to advertise their products”, which directly harms “consumers since they limit their ability to discover new brands and/or or alternative products to those of Apple”, added the note.
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The fine corresponding to Apple amounts to 143.6 million euros, while Amazon must pay 50.5.
Like other technology giants, Apple and Amazon received different sanctions in recent years in Europe for not respecting competition law.
In Italy, Amazon was fined 1,128 million euros in December 2021. Apple, for its part, was fined 371.6 million euros in France in October 2022.
After years running in vain against infringements in endless legal proceedings, the European Union agreed in March 2022 on new legislation to crack down on abuses of dominance by digital giants.
This new regulation will allow Brussels to anticipate, imposing rules on the most powerful actors that they must respect under threat of dissuasive fines. The goal is to get action before abusive behavior destroys the competition.
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