To gain a more outstanding piece of the sales, Amazon and Apple have turned away resellers. Italy has already imposed a fine, while Spain and Germany have launched a probe. On November 23, 2021, the Italian competition regulator fined Apple 134.5 million euros and Amazon 68.7 million euros.

Three years ago, the transalpine antitrust court decided that stipulations in a contract signed between the two American behemoths violated Article 101 of the EU’s Operating Treaty, which forbids anti-competitive acts including cartels and abuse of dominant position. Amazon and Apple have agreed to restrict official and unauthorized resellers from selling Apple and Beats items on Amazon.

According to the Italian body’s statement, the intention was to leave the field open to Amazon, and “certain merchants have chosen individually and in a discriminating manner.”The authority has detected a precise aim to control. It has imposed “purely quantitative constraints on the number of authorized resellers” on the platform, allowing Amazon and Apple to sell their items directly to customers rather than through middlemen, increasing their profits.

 Because “70 percent of consumer electronics purchases in Italy” are made on Amazon, this is an offer to be taken seriously.” To be compliant with competition regulations, distribution systems must be based on qualitative criteria that are non-discriminatory and applied equally to all potential resellers,” says the Italian antitrust authority.

- Ad -