French Court Lowers Antitrust Fine Against Apple Over Third-Party Retailer Pricing

An appeals court in France today lowered a fine levied against Apple by the French Competition Authority due to alleged "anti-competitive behaviour towards its distribution and retail network," according to Reuters. The report claims the fine has been lowered to 372 million euros, down from the original amount of 1.1 billion euros.

Apple Premium Reseller
The antitrust regulator fined Apple in 2020 after finding that it imposed prices on Apple Authorized Resellers in France so that prices were in line with those charged at Apple Stores and on Apple.com. The fine was reduced after the appeals court dropped one of the three main charges related to price-fixing allegations, and significantly lowered the rate applied to calculate the overall fine, according to the report.

The investigation began after a dispute between Apple and one of its leading French wholesalers, which alleged that it went out of business due to Apple's uncompetitive rules. When fined in 2020, Apple said the French Competition Authority's decision was "disheartening" and "discards thirty years of legal precedent."

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
ipad pro 2024

New iPad Pro Reportedly Launching This Year

Tuesday January 21, 2025 6:40 am PST by
Apple plans to release at least one new iPad Pro model this year, according to a supplier-focused report today from Korean website The Elec. It is likely that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models would be updated simultaneously. After receiving an OLED display last year, the report said the iPad Pro will receive only "minor" changes this year. Overall, the next iPad Pro is expected to...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...

Top Rated Comments

genovelle Avatar
30 months ago

You know...when will governments realize that fining Apple $350 mil is NOTHING. Apple makes over $15 BILLION every 3 months. You fined them nothing and they are zero reasons to change. These laws need to be changed to be a % of yearly earnings. Instead of $350 Mil, it should have been 5% of 2020 profits. Maybe then Apple will take these seriously.
So Apple has rules and offered the contract in place. The Wholesaler decided to agree to those terms but claim apple is being anticompetitive. Truth is. They don’t have to offer their products to wholesalers and won’t if it impacts their bottom line. The problem is Apple is one of the few companies that is structured properly. There is no reason to loose money to do business just to claim market share. That is a common go to market strategy and the reason so few companies make it.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AhRiHmAn Avatar
30 months ago

Why does an American company have to listen to some European country?

If you don’t like iPhones - don’t sell them.
Well isn't it a bit simplistic way of thinking? ?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mystery hill Avatar
30 months ago

Why does an American company have to listen to some European country?

If you don’t like iPhones - don’t sell them.
Because that American company really wants money from Europeans.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I7guy Avatar
30 months ago

You know...when will governments realize that fining Apple $350 mil is NOTHING. Apple makes over $15 BILLION every 3 months. You fined them nothing and they are zero reasons to change. These laws need to be changed to be a % of yearly earnings. Instead of $350 Mil, it should have been 5% of 2020 profits. Maybe then Apple will take these seriously.
You don't think Apple is entitled to the same fairness?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BaldiMac Avatar
30 months ago

You know...when will governments realize that fining Apple $350 mil is NOTHING. Apple makes over $15 BILLION every 3 months. You fined them nothing and they are zero reasons to change. These laws need to be changed to be a % of yearly earnings. Instead of $350 Mil, it should have been 5% of 2020 profits. Maybe then Apple will take these seriously.

372 million euros is roughly USD$365,635,080.00.

Is it a lot of money? Yes, to us common people. But not for Apple.

Apple had a profit of $19.4 billion last quarter ('https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/28/apple-3q-2022-results/'). That means Apple's profit was roughly $215,555,555 per day. Apple can pay off this fine in less than 2 days.
I don't think it's reasonable for individual countries to fine Apple based on global profits. You should compare the fine to their French revenue.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gnipgnop Avatar
30 months ago
They dropped the price fixing charges. Apple is still appealing the ruling by saying that the FCA knows that the other charges are based on "practices from more than a decade ago that even the (French authority) recognised are no longer in use."
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)