The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) Spanish fined this Tuesday 194.15 million euros to different companies of the groups Amazon and Manzana for agreeing and executing certain competition restrictions on the website of the first company.
As reported in a statement by this independent government entity but subject to parliamentary control, it specifically sanctioned Apple companies with 143.64 million and Amazon companies to pay 50.51 million.
The Commission took this decision against the companies for infringing articles 1 of the Law on the Defense of Competition (LDC) and 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). After knowing the sentence, Amazon announced its intention to appeal.
Amazon and Apple signed on October 31, 2018 two contracts that regulate the conditions of Amazon as authorized distributor of Apple, which included several clauses “competitive restrictions that affected the internet retail sale of electronic products in Spain”.
Both companies restricted “unjustifiably” the number of resellers of Apple products on Amazon’s website, limited the ad spaces where competitors can advertise, and reduced the ability of the e-commerce company to run marketing campaigns. ‘marketing’ to customers of Apple products on its website to offer them other items.
The technology giants agreed that only a series of distributors designated by Apple itself could sell the brand’s products through the Amazon website.
As a result of this measure, more than 90% of resellers were excluded from this market and lost an important sales channel.
In addition, the sales of Apple-branded products in said online market were concentrated in Amazon itself, trade between Member States was limited and an increase in the relative prices paid by consumers for the purchase of Apple products on the web was observed.
advertising clauses
The companies also included advertising clauses with which, according to the CNMC, they limited the possibility that Apple’s competing brands could acquire advertising space on the e-commerce website when searching for products and during the purchase process.
In the case of ‘marketing’established that Amazon could not carry out, without the consent of Apple, marketing and advertising campaigns that were specifically directed at customers who had purchased Apple company products on the web and that encouraged these consumers to switch to the competition.
As a consequence of these clauses, Apple saw reduced the competitive pressure generated by the competition’s advertisements and marketing campaigns.
In addition, the CNMC considers that these limitations directly harmed consumers by limiting their ability to discover new brands, increasing their search costs and reducing their ability to change.
Amazon will appeal the decision
Amazon has already announced its intention to appeal the decision and denied that it benefits from excluding sellers from the store, taking into account that their “business model is based precisely on the success of companies that sell through Amazon, many of which are SMEs”.
Moreover, the company believes that, as a result of the agreement with Apple, its Spanish customers benefited from a wide variety of products, which has been “more than doubled” in the last four years, “great deals” and of “faster shipping”.
Against this resolution of the CNMC, it is possible to file a contentious-administrative appeal before the Spanish National Court within a period of two months from the day following its notification.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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