
Amazon and Apple fined for breaking EU rules
Amazon and Apple have been fined a total of Euro 203 million by the Italian antitrust authority for alleged anti-competitive cooperation to sell Apple and headphone maker Beats products.
The two companies in 2018 agreed that only selected resellers were allowed to sell Apple and Beats products on Amazon’s Italian site and thereby violating EU rules, the authority said.
The authority said an investigation had shown “certain contractual clauses of an agreement signed on October 31, 2018 – which prohibited official and unofficial retailers of Apple and Beats products from using Amazon.it, allowing the sale of Apple and Beats products in that marketplace only to Amazon and to certain subjects chosen individually and in a discriminatory manner – violate art. 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.”
For the violation Amazon is fined Euro 68.7 million and Apple Euro 134.5 million.
Apple has announced that it will appeal against the fine.
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