On Monday, the French competition agency fined Apple about $ 1.2 billion for its alleged anti-competitive practices.
The French competition authority imposed a fine of € 1.1 billion – the largest ever imposed on a company – after finding a technical giant “guilty of cartels” and abusing its dealers’ financial dependency. The French authorities also fined two Apple wholesalers a total of EUR 139 million, or about $ 155 million.
“Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products,” Isabelle de Silva, president of the competition authority, said in a press release.
Wholesalers, US-based Tech Data and Ingram Micro, have introduced “product and customer sharing mechanisms” developed by Apple, according to French officials, rather than setting their own policies. The Authority, together with the fine, imposed on Tech Data EUR 76.1 million and Ingram Micro a fine of EUR 62.9 million.
According to the competition authority, Apple also caused sales sales and “discriminatory treatment” to its dealers.
None of the three fined companies responded immediately to requests for comment on Monday morning. But Apple said in the last quarter that it “strongly disagrees” with the competition authority’s claims.
Company spokesman told CNBC that it intends to appeal and called the decision “deceptive”.
“It relates to practices more than a decade ago and rejects a thirty-year legal precedent that all French companies rely on for an order that causes chaos for companies in all industries,” an Apple spokesman told CNBC.
French officials also hit Apple in February with a $ 25 million fine for software updates that were likely to slow down older iPhones.
