SPAIN’S competition watchdog, the CNMC, has fined international companies Amazon and Apple a total of €194 million for collusion in the sale of products.
The two firms had limited the sale of Apple products on Amazon’s Spanish websites ‘which restricted competition’, the CNMC said in a statement.
It launched a probe in July 2021 for ‘possible anti-competition practices in the sectors of Internet sales of electronic products and the provision of marketing services to third-party retailers through online platforms’.
The CNMC said at the time that it had access to ‘certain information’ from which it had found ‘rational indications’ that Amazon and Apple were in breach of laws related to the defence of competition and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Both firms agreed in 2018 to sign two contracts in which they updated Amazon’s role as an authorised distributor of Apple products.
The CNMC discovered that only a series of distributors approved only by Apple could sell its wares via Amazon’s Spanish portals.
“This meant that 90% of resellers on Amazon in Spain who had been selling Apple products were excluded from the country’s main online market,” the watchdog commented.
There was also a price rise in Apple products on Amazon, according to the CNMC.
Amazon says it ‘disagrees’ with the ruling and plans to appeal it.
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