Apple Fined $150M+ By Italian Watchdog for Anti-Competitive Cooperation With Amazon

[Altivec88]

This is not how authorities and watchdog are working in Italy. You seem very used to talk about stuff you don’t really know


LMAO, there is a 173 pages report on this case and you likely have no clue of EU market rules. However you consider your sentence, written on a forum in your spare time, to be more in line with the facts.


Being partially founded by the government, and having to subit yearly reports on the activities, does not mean that the watchdog activities are driven by the government and by the politics. Not sure which standard you are used to, though.

LOL. You are telling me that they are partially funded by the government and report to the government but I don't know what I am talking about. yah okay...

How do you know I don't have a clue of EU market rules or that I didn't read the report? Just because you write this on a forum in your spare time does not make it a fact. You have no idea of who I am or what I know. You clearly don't understand what facts are or you wouldn't make accusations like that.

This ruling is a blatant money grab. It does nothing to help the people. The result of this ruling will cause more Italians to get counterfeit products. If that makes you happy. Good for you.

 

[gfbio]

LOL. You are telling me that they are partially funded by the government and report to the government but I don't know what I am talking about. yah okay...

How do you know I don't have a clue of EU market rules or that I didn't read the report? Just because you write this on a forum in your spare time does not make it a fact. You have no idea of who I am or what I know. You clearly don't understand what facts are or you wouldn't make accusations like that.

This ruling is a blatant money grab. It does nothing to help the people. The result of this ruling will cause more Italians to get counterfeit products. If that makes you happy. Good for you.

So, let me recap. You are saying that a Watchdog, appointed two governments ago by a different coa lition, which yeah it's partially funded by the government (as in many western countries) but is not subject to the spoil system, took this decision for the government's hunger of money. Too bad that the watchdog does not decide the rules of the EU market, which have been defined by a European treaty, and that the fine, which will be confirmed or rejected by another judge, is not fungible by the government. You then complain about the magnitude of the fine, which however is computed as a percentage of the sale. Considering that 70% of Apple's online sells in Italy occurs on Amazon, one could even argue that this fine is not so much compared to other cases.

This ruling makes me neither happy nor sad. I'm totally indifferent to that, as I'll continue to buy Apple products in Apple Stores. I’m not even saying that the case is right or wrong. I'm just pointing that the case is not that simple, and that the authorities have the right to investigate whether commercial practices comply with EU market law. Third-party sellers can already legally sell Apple products in physical stores and on other web platforms. Amazon can quite easily take down counterfeit products.

 

[laptech]

...

This ruling is a blatant money grab. It does nothing to help the people. The result of this ruling will cause more Italians to get counterfeit products. If that makes you happy. Good for you.

If you knew what you was talking about on the issue you would not have written this last sentance in the manner you did. The antitrust issue revolves around the practice known as 'price fixing' where companies work together to keep prices artificially high. With having Apple working together with Amazon on which 'sellected' sellers (not 'trusted' sellers which you have used in one of your posts) can sell Apple Beats products, these 'sellected' sellers are told to keep the prices of Beats products at a set price. By restricting who on Amazon is legitimately allowed to sell Beats products means the possibility of Beats products being sold at a lower price is taken away from the consumer. This is against EU law. This antitrust issue has nothing to do with counterfit goods nor is it a money grab especially when you consider such antitrust 'price fixing' law suits have taken place across numerous EU countries against a number of the worlds top companies. By your reckoning, every one of these antitrust law suits would be viewed as a 'money grab' or is it only a 'money grab' when Apple is involved?

 

[5232152]

So you are upset that Apple and Amazon are trying to tackle the huge problem of counterfeit products by limiting sellers to ones that are trusted. Think about it, Why would Apple or Amazon care if Luigi's side store sells a legitimate Apple product. It still originated from Apple at some point so they got their money, Amazon gets their commission so they get their money. The problem is when Luigi's side store also deals with China to get Apple counterfeit clones and sends that instead. This hurts Apple and more importantly the Customer. This type of action should be applauded, not fined. The result of this action will cause more Italian consumers being scammed.

The Italian government is very very very short on cash derived from scandal and corruption. This is just another scam on their part to get some easy money. This is clearly evident by the insanely high disproportionate fine for something that shouldn't even be a fine. But yah, its cool and hip to hang around Apple fan sites and be an anti Apple fanboy.

In the EU you don't sue for cash. You sue for honesty. Always American companies that don't understand that the people's watchdog (government) actually won't let them run wild like they are back home in the US where the government is bribed to let people drink water from toxic piping. Americans have a hard time with the idea that a government can be just the slightest trustable and would rather set their faith to tax-avoiding trillion-dollar companies.

No good sir, your logic does not apply on this continent.

 

[bsolar]

This ruling is a blatant money grab. It does nothing to help the people. The result of this ruling will cause more Italians to get counterfeit products. If that makes you happy. Good for you.

I don't think the motivations behind this ruling are public yet, or at least I didn't find them yet among the authority's publications. Without the full documentation it's impossible to determine whether the ruling is right, wrong or whatever.

I advise against fast and hard prejudices on the matter until the actual ruling document can be analyzed in detail.

Furthermore, I guess there will be an appeal on the matter.

 

[gfbio]

I don't think the motivations behind this ruling are public yet, or at least I didn't find them yet among the authority's publications. Without the full documentation it's impossible to determine whether the ruling is right, wrong or whatever.

I advise against fast and hard prejudices on the matter until the actual ruling document can be analyzed in detail.

Furthermore, I guess there will be an appeal on the matter.

Yeah, the motivations of the ruling are public at this link, the full text is at the bottom, but there is no English translation, unfortunately.

This is the summary of the ruling translated with DeePL

Spoiler

The companies Amazon and Apple have been sanctioned for having put in place a restrictive agreement that did not allow all legitimate resellers of "genuine" Apple and Beats products to operate on the amazon.it marketplace

On November 16, 2021, the Italian Antitrust Authority concluded the investigation initiated against the companies of the Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. groups regarding restrictions on access to the Amazon.it marketplace by legitimate resellers of "genuine" Apple and Beats branded products.

The investigation made it possible to ascertain that certain contractual clauses of an agreement entered into on October 31, 2018 - which prohibited official and unofficial resellers of Apple and Beats products from using Amazon.it, allowing the sale of Apple and Beats products in that marketplace only to Amazon and certain individually selected parties in a discriminatory manner - violate Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

In fact, during the preliminary investigation it was ascertained that the intention was to introduce a purely quantitative restriction on the number of retailers, allowing only Amazon and certain subjects, identified in a discriminatory manner, to operate on Amazon.it. The clauses of the agreement have also limited cross-border sales, insofar as there has been discrimination between retailers on a geographical basis. The restrictions of the agreement were reflected in the level of discounts applied by third parties on Amazon.it, reducing their entity.

The restrictiveness of such conduct appears to be confirmed by the circumstance that Amazon.it represents the place of electronic commerce where at least 70% of purchases of consumer electronics products in Italy are made, of which at least 40% are represented by retailers who use Amazon as an intermediation platform.

It seems therefore essential that the application of competition rules ensure a level playing field for all retailers who use marketplaces as an increasingly important place to carry out their business activities, especially in today's context, avoiding the realization of discriminatory conduct that restricts competition.

In this perspective, the Authority's decision recognizes, in line with the jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice, the need for distribution systems, in order to be compatible with competition rules, to be based on criteria of a qualitative nature, non-discriminatory and applied indiscriminately to all potential resellers.

The Authority took the lead in this action and, thanks to its intervention and collaboration, the national competition authorities of Germany and Spain subsequently initiated similar proceedings.

The Authority therefore imposed a fine of 68.7 million euros on the companies of the Amazon group and a fine of 134.5 million euros on the companies of the Apple group and ordered these companies to put an end to the restrictions, allowing access to Amazon.it to resellers of "genuine" Apple and Beats products in a non-discriminatory manner.

 

[I7guy]

Oh lots of people asked for it, remember the issue with low wages and high working hours, lots of people here were demanding Apple quit china market.

The same happened about the censorship thing.

There definitely is a vocal minority. And with everything apple there are always those who are for, against and in the middle.

 

[amartinez1660]

Has Italy ever fined Amazon for selling counterfeit Apple merchandise?

And the resellers of said merchandise? And the resellers that entered in these mentioned agreements?

If the story is “this is for the good of the customer”, then counterfeit anything is also very bad for the customer, bad for advancement, bad for the market… not defending big companies here, just mentioning that I find it fishy that they only go for very very big companies.

 

[bsolar]

If the story is “this is for the good of the customer”, then counterfeit anything is also very bad for the customer, bad for advancement, bad for the market… not defending big companies here, just mentioning that I find it fishy that they only go for very very big companies.

The authority argues that point in detail actually.

Apparently, Amazon implemented an effective and non-limiting anti-counterfeit measure in their Brand Registry program and insisted that Apple joins said program to reduce the number of complaints.

Apple initially refused to join said program and clearly stated as their goal the reduction to the number of resellers to an arbitrary max of 20. Furthermore, Apple handpicked these resellers arbitrarily. The rationale was the wish of gating and more easily control these resellers.

Apple only joined the Brand Registry as condition in the deal with Amazon which limited resellers.

 

[Xand&Roby]

To elaborate on this: typically a grey-market reseller imports products purchased wholesale from a country where the product is cheaper. This means the consumer can actually profit from globalization by getting a cheaper product sourced from somewhere else.

This is typically legal, but companies don't like it because they'd rather manufacture at the cheaper countries' prices, but sell at the developed countries' higher prices, netting a higher profit margin. That's as example the main reason for region-locked products.

Basically companies want to profit from globalization, but also want to prevent consumers from doing the same.

World isn’t a simple place.
When an unauthorised reseller sell product at a fragment of official price isn’t “we the people advantages of globalisation against multinationals”, it’s more likes “we the criminals advantages of crap controls against the laws”.
In Italy some years ago a site called “stockisti” sells products at 22~25% better prices.
22~25% is the VAT range, strangely.
Two years later the site collapsed: it was a crime association set in Malta, just famous as a right place to found poker online and other sites like these, who sells in EU without pay the VAT taxes.
Now I don’t know if there are again naive people around the world but when a crime association grew up is ‘cause a bigger crime association don’t kill it.
So you know “Hey, it’s we the people against globalisation” but in reality is “hey, I purchase the last iPhone from an authorised drugs, prostitution and crime organisation but it’s ok, we are the people against globalisation!”.
I don’t know about US, but in Italy purchase low prices products who could be under law infringement it’s a crime, until 3 yrs of jail.
Not bad as an “antiglobalisation” action. ??

 

[bsolar]

When an unauthorised reseller sell product at a fragment of official price isn’t “we the people advantages of globalisation against multinationals”, it’s more likes “we the criminals advantages of crap controls against the laws”.

As explained, an "unauthorized" reseller is not necessarily violating any law. The "unauthorized" resellers involved in the anti-competitive case mentioned in the article are acknowledged to be legally reselling products.

They are "unauthorized" in the sense that they are not involved in Apple's reseller programs, not that any actual authority didn't give them some sort of "required" authorization to resell.

 

[laptech]

The authority argues that point in detail actually.

Apparently, Amazon implemented an effective and non-limiting anti-counterfeit measure in their Brand Registry program and insisted that Apple joins said program to reduce the number of complaints.

Apple initially refused to join said program and clearly stated as their goal the reduction to the number of resellers to an arbitrary max of 20. Furthermore, Apple handpicked these resellers arbitrarily. The rationale was the wish of gating and more easily control these resellers.

Apple only joined the Brand Registry as condition in the deal with Amazon which limited resellers.

There has to be more to this because restricting which sellers you allow to stock your products based on anti-counterfeit reasons/concerns is not antitrust BUT if Apple is using anti-counterfiet reasons to basically dictate which sellers they give their products to so they can manipulate the prices of their products (keeping them higher) then yes that is market manipulation, basically price fixing which is an antitrust issue but from what I have read there is no evidence of that.

 

[Xand&Roby]

As explained, an "unauthorized" reseller is not necessarily violating any law. The "unauthorized" resellers involved in the anti-competitive case mentioned in the article are acknowledged to be legally reselling products.

They are "unauthorized" in the sense that they are not involved in Apple's reseller programs, not that any actual authority didn't give them some sort of "required" authorization to resell.

Last time I've controlled Amazon don't require anything for sellers account, it's full of store builds from scammers who sells fake products or in some cases didn't sells anything, making cherry picking of others money. And as I could understand the behaviors of Amazon Italy, no one make a control about the nature of prices and how products sells from resellers were acquired. It's not too difficult, I believe, sells stolen products, as for eBay and others platforms.

Obviously "unauthorized" reseller is not necessarily violating any law, but some of these resellers are criminals. What I'm talking about in response to you is that the world is a bit more complex than a fight between people and companies, nor 'cause I'm a globalist nor 'cause companies are even right, but really what I could see in years of e-commerce is that there aren't heroes, it's more ordinary meets villains.

 

[bsolar]

Last time I've controlled Amazon don't require anything for sellers account, it's full of store builds from scammers who sells fake products or in some cases didn't sells anything, making cherry picking of others money. And as I could understand the behaviors of Amazon Italy, no one make a control about the nature of prices and how products sells from resellers were acquired. It's not too difficult, I believe, sells stolen products, as for eBay and others platforms.

Obviously "unauthorized" reseller is not necessarily violating any law, but some of these resellers are criminals. What I'm talking about in response to you is that the world is a bit more complex than a fight between people and companies, nor 'cause I'm a globalist nor 'cause companies are even right, but really what I could see in years of e-commerce is that there aren't heroes, it's more ordinary meets villains.

As explained, the authority argued the point of counterfeits and found that Amazon has programs in place to combat counterfeits without the need to limit lawful resellers or handpick them the way Apple wanted.

The authority is not saying "the deal is illegal so just accept having more illegal resellers or counterfeits"; the authority is saying "the deal imposes additional restrictions to legal resellers which are actually not required to combat illegal resellers or counterfeits".