In 2020, the competition authority of France slapped a fine of €1.1 billion on Apple for allegedly manipulating the retail market for its products.
Soon, Apple appealed against the decision, seeking a reduction in the penalty amount. This worked out now, as an appeals court in France has slashed the penalty of Apple to €372 million, saying the original penalty was disproportionate.
Apple’s Retail Manipulation in France
One of the many lawsuits Apple is strangled with – a retail manipulation in France, has the company penalized for €372 million now. To the unknown, France’s competition regulator Autorité de la Concurrence has penalized Apple for €1.1 billion for manipulation of its products in the retail market.
Apple is found guilty of limiting the number of iPads given to some retailers when compared to its own stores. Also, it broke an agreement of not competing with two of its wholesalers and barred some retailers from lowering prices on its products.
All this attracted the heavy penalty from the France competition regulator, which started investigating this case in 2012. Soon, Apple appealed this decision – which now resulted in an appeals court in France lowering the penalty amount to €372 million, calling the original penalty “disproportionate” and saying that the new amount was enough to dissuade the company from bad behavior.
Well, an unnamed Apple spokesperson to Reuters said that they actually planned to repeal the fine’s reduction, as Apple believes it shouldn’t have to pay anything because it’s over a decade old! Relatively, a spokesperson from the France competition regulator said they want to appeal this again to “guarantee the dissuasive nature of our penalties, especially when it concerns market players” of Apple’s size.
Aside from this, Apple is involved in a number of other lawsuits coming from the EU and US, accusing it of various cases like App Store policies, third-party usage of the NFC system in its iPhones, etc.
