The Spanish competition authority imposed, on Tuesday July 18, a fine of 194 million euros on Apple and Amazon for practices deemed anti-competitive in the distribution of Apple brand products by Amazon Spain.
The two major American groups “have agreed to include a number of clauses in the contracts governing” the sale of Apple products by Amazon Spain “which have restricted competition”, justified in a press release the National Markets Commission and competition (CNMC).
According to the CNMC, these practices stem from two contracts signed in October 2018 in order to “modify the dynamics of the sale of Apple products on the Amazon Spain website”, and which penalized both Apple’s competitors and certain Apple resellers. apple brand products. Under these contracts, “only a certain number of Apple-designated resellers could sell Apple-branded products on the Amazon Spain website,” CNMC said.
In addition, these agreements “limited the ability of Apple’s competitors to purchase advertising space on Amazon’s Spanish site to offer their products”, which “directly harmed consumers by limiting their ability to discover new brands,” the statement also read.
Several fines in recent years in Europe
In a reaction sent to Agence France-Presse, Apple announced its intention to appeal this decision, claiming to have implemented these rules with Amazon in order to “protect consumers” against the risk of counterfeiting. Apple’s goal is to “protect users from the safety, security and quality risks posed by counterfeit products,” the group said.
The fine imposed on Apple amounts in detail to 143.6 million euros and that imposed on Amazon to 50.5 million euros.
Apple and Amazon have been fined several times in Europe in recent years for non-compliance with competition law. In Italy, Amazon was fined 1.13 billion euros in December 2021. In France, a fine of 371.6 million euros was imposed on Apple in October 2022.
The European Union agreed in March 2022 on new legislation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to put an end to the abuse of a dominant position by digital giants. This new regulation, which will come into force from March 2024, will allow Brussels to act upstream by imposing on the most powerful players rules to be respected under penalty of dissuasive fines. The objective is to act before abusive behavior has destroyed competition.
