of Spain antitrust guard has fined Amazon and Apple €$194 million for collusion to restrict third-party sales of Apple products on the giant online retail platform, which “drastically” reduced competition.
The fine comes as a result of a case launched by regulator CNMC in July 2021 to prove that the pair worked together unfairly to “reduce competition in the internet retail electronic products market”.
Apparently the CNMC found the evidence it was looking for. “Over 90% of resellers using the Amazon website in Spain to sell Apple products have been banned from Spain’s main online market,” it said.
The regulator also pointed out that Amazon has limited the ability of retailers in other EU countries to access Spanish customers and limited the advertising Apple’s competitors were allowed to place on its site when users searched for Apple products.
As a result, Amazon was fined €50.5 million, while Apple was fined €143.6 million. The companies now have two months to appeal the decision probably Will.
Find out about our conference presentations
Watch videos of our past lectures for free with TNW All Access →
“We reject CNMC’s claim that Amazon benefits from excluding sellers from its marketplace because our business model depends precisely on the success of the companies that sell through Amazon,” Amazon said in a statement Reuters.
Apple said the 2018 agreement with Amazon aimed to limit the number of counterfeits sold online. However, small resellers complained that this was threatening their business, as the requirements to become an authorized reseller include sales in the millions.
Three countries – Germany, Italy and Spain – opened antitrust investigations into the matter. Germany never dropped the case, but Italy imposed higher fines on Apple and Amazon €200m for restricting competition on sales of Apple and Beats products, but later dropped the fees.
Comments are closed.