The US digital behemoths Amazon and Apple were fined a combined sum of 194 million euros ($218 million) by Spain’s antitrust watchdog on Tuesday for colluding in the selling of goods.
The regulator stated in a statement that the two companies had agreed to prohibit the selling of Apple items on Amazon’s Spanish websites by third-party resellers “which restricted competition”.
According to the terms of a 2018 agreement between the parties, only specific resellers chosen by Apple were permitted to sell Apple items on Amazon.es, it claimed.
The statement read: “More than 90% of resellers who used Amazon’s website in Spain to sell Apple products were barred from Spain’s primary online market.”
The action “dramatically” lessened rivalry amongst Apple product resellers on Amazon’s Spanish marketplace, it stated.
Amazon and Apple each received fines of 50.5 million euros and 143.6 million euros, respectively, from the authority.
In recent years, Europe has punished tech titans like Apple and Amazon multiple times for breaking competition regulations.
In December 2021, Italy fined Amazon 1.1 billion euros for abusing its dominating market position, while in October 2022, France fined Apple 371.6 million euros.
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