Apple Inc. won a reduction of 728 million euros ($715 million) for record The €1.1 billion fine it has already incurred in 2020 for anti-competitive agreements with two favored distributors.
The Paris Court of Appeal reduced Apple’s total fines on Thursday to about 371.6 million euros after judges decided to cut the duration of Apple’s fines. one of violations and reduce the increment applied to the penalty taking into account the economic strength of the company.
“90% of multiples are disproportionate,” the court said in its ruling. “A multiple of 50% is enough to ensure that the penalties are harsh and unconvincing.”
The French competitive arm has been watching closely Silicon Valley firmly in recent years. Last year, Google was fined 500 million euros for failing to comply with an order to cancel fair contracts with news publishers. The California tech giant later addressed the content of that incident to avoid further fines but has previously received hefty penalties in separate cases. Similarly, Meta reached an agreement earlier this year to avoid fines after making commitments related to the online advertising market.
More broadly, regulators across Europe have been fighting to rein in Big Tech’s dominance through a combination of fines and regulatory actions. The companies showed they were willing to appeal the decisions, drawing on years of costly investigations.
Apple said it plans to file another appeal with France’s highest court to reduce the penalty to zero. “We believe it should be completely overturned,” it said in a statement.
France’s antitrust authority, Autorite de la concurred, said it was considering filing its own appeal.
“We would like to reaffirm our desire to ensure the discordant nature of our penalties, particularly when it concerns market players of the caliber such as ‘Silicon Valley companies,'” Virginia Guin , an official at Autorit said
At a hearing last year in the appellate case, Apple accuses French regulators of bending antitrust rules “for political purposes” as they roll out record fines as part of a campaign to crack down on the tech giant’s dominance
When issuing the fine in 2020, the French agency said Apple conspired with two wholesalers – Tech Data and Ingram Micro – in a move to discourage wholesale competition for non-iPhone products, such as Apple Mac Computer. The duo were also fined 76.1 million euros and 63 million euros.
Tech Data’s fine was reduced to around 25 million euros and Ingram Micro’s penalty was reduced to 19.5 million euros. Tech Data, which merged last year with Synnex Corp., “is pleased that the court has considered the company’s arguments in this ruling, but we will analyze the decision closely to identify any potential next step,” a company spokesperson said in the statement. A representative for Ingram Micro did not respond to a request for comment.
