Spain’s high court has suspended 194 million euros ($209 million) in fines imposed on Apple and Amazon by the local antitrust watchdog in July, pending an appeal by the tech giants, an Amazon spokesperson said on Thursday.
Reuters:
CNMC, as the watchdog is known, fined Amazon and Apple for colluding to prevent dealers other than Amazon from selling Apple wares on Amazon’s websites in Spain.
Apple was fined 143.6 million euros and Amazon 50.5 million euros and both companies at the time said they would appeal.
The court decision to suspend the payment is part of the appeal process, the Amazon spokesperson said.
Amazon said in July that as a result of the deal with Apple, the number of discounts on Apple devices on Amazon’s websites increased, while Apple said the deal was intended to protect customers from fake devices.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote in 2019, “Eliminating counterfeit Apple products on Amazon isn’t illegal.”
Apple has the right to vet Authorized Apple Resellers in order to maintain high levels of service.
Apple obviously wants as much uniformity in, and control of, the sales experience of their products as possible. — MacDailyNews, May 21, 2019
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MDN really needs to read before reposting old Takes. This time isn’t the lawsuit about Apple and Amazon allowing discounts on Apple products forcing other authorized retailers in Spain to follow suit and take a lower margin or lose sales to Amazon? It sounds noble that the stated intent is “Eliminating counterfeit Apple products on Amazon…”, but it is clearly hurting Apple retailers. In the end remedies could include assurances that should similar discounts be allowed in the future, Apple will subsidize the retailer(s) for the difference.
That’s nuts.