Spain’s high court suspends $209 million fines on Apple, Amazon amid appeal

Spain’s high court has suspended 194 million euros ($209 million) in fines imposed on Apple and Amazon by the local antitrust watchdog in July, pending an appeal by the tech giants, an Amazon spokesperson said on Thursday.
Reuters:
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CNMC, as the watchdog is known, fined Amazon and Apple for colluding to prevent dealers other than Amazon from selling Apple wares on Amazon’s websites in Spain.
Apple was fined 143.6 million euros and Amazon 50.5 million euros and both companies at the time said they would appeal.
The court decision to suspend the payment is part of the appeal process, the Amazon spokesperson said.
Amazon said in July that as a result of the deal with Apple, the number of discounts on Apple devices on Amazon’s websites increased, while Apple said the deal was intended to protect customers from fake devices.

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MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote in 2019, “Eliminating counterfeit Apple products on Amazon isn’t illegal.”
Apple has the right to vet Authorized Apple Resellers in order to maintain high levels of service.
Apple obviously wants as much uniformity in, and control of, the sales experience of their products as possible. — MacDailyNews, May 21, 2019
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