Apple keeps finding its way into one scandal after another and the latest one involves the company engaging in anti-competitive practices to create a monopoly.
After nearly a decade of investigations, France’s national competition regulator has announced that they’ve fined Apple a record-breaking $1.23 billion for anti-competitive behavior in its sales and distribution networks.
The French regulator said that two of the company’s wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, had agreed on not competing with each other and also prevented distributors from competing in order to sterilize the wholesale market in favor of Apple’s products. They did so by unlawfully assigning prices they both agreed on.
As a result, Tech Data and Ingram Micro were fined $70 million and $85 million respectively.
Apple says that the French regulator’s decision is disheartening as it relates to practices from over a decade ago and it disregards 30 years of legal precedent. They added that they strongly disagree with this decision and plan to appeal.
This is the second time that France has fined Apple over illegal practices. Back in February, the American tech giant was fined $28 million for unlawfully slowing its iPhones when new updates arrive. The company then admitted that they were actually doing so but only to keep older iPhone models “running along”.
