Italy’s antitrust authority issues whopping €200m fine to Amazon and Apple
Italy’s antitrust authority has fined Amazon and Apple more than €200m (£168m) in the latest sign that the EU is cracking down on big tech.
Two of the world’s largest companies allegedly colluded in anti-competitive behaviour during the sale of Apple and Beats products. The Italian competition watchdog said the companies had violated EU rules and issued a fine of €68.7m to Amazon and €134.5m to Apple.
In a statement released today the antitrust authority said, “contractual provisions of an agreement entered into on Oct. 31, 2018 barred official and unofficial resellers of Apple and Beats products from using Amazon.it, allowing the sale of those products in that marketplace only to Amazon and to selected parties in a discriminatory manner”.
The companies were ordered to end the restrictions.
The decision comes mere weeks after the EU General Court issued a whopping fine of €2.42bn to Google for breaching anti trust rules. The EU court found that the world’s most popular internet search engine for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller rivals.
The decision came hours after the UK’s Supreme Court voted down a case which would have seen Google pay more than £3bn in compensation to some 4.4m customers who allegedly had their data unlawfully collected and sold on commercially.
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