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.
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
Code discovered in Apple's backend by Nicolás Alvarez and shared with MacRumors confirms Apple's plans to release four iPhone 16 models this year, and it indicates that the devices will all have the same A-series chip. There are mentions of new model numbers that are not associated with existing iPhones, and that have the numbering scheme Apple uses for its flagship devices. The code...
The upcoming iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be the first Apple smartphones to adopt Samsung's high performance "M14" OLED display panel, claims a new report coming out of South Korea. According to ETNews, Samsung's "M" series of OLED panels are made for flagship smartphones, while "14" refers to the number of high-performance materials used to produce them. "M14" is the first...
Apple today reclassified the iPhone X, first-generation HomePod, and first-generation AirPods as "vintage" products. The products appeared on Apple's vintage and obsolete products list earlier today. Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than five and less than seven years ago. Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers continue to offer...
Two years after Apple paid $50 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over faulty MacBook butterfly keyboards, funds from the settlement will be going out to affected customers. An update on the MacBook Keyboard Litigation Settlement website says that the court issued a payment order on June 27, 2024, with payments set to be issued for approved claims by August 2024. Emails about the...
Apple eventually plans to turn some of its artificial intelligence features into paid services, similar to iCloud+ subscriptions, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said that while Apple Intelligence will be free to start, Apple's long-term plan is to launch something like "Apple Intelligence+," with extra features that users pay...
Apple's upcoming iOS 18 software update is packed with features for supported iPhones, but it also promises to make your AirPods Pro experience better with a handful of sophisticated new capabilities that draw from machine learning improvements and AI enhancements. The following five AirPods Pro features are expected to arrive later this year, when iOS 18 is released to the general public in ...
