Apple and Amazon are facing legal actions in the US for allegedly hiking prices for the former’s consumer electronic product by driving out resellers on the latter’s e-commerce platform. Here are all the details.
The two tech giants are facing a class action antitrust lawsuit in the US for conspiring with one another to drive up the prices of iPhones and iPads. Both companies did this by removing nearly every other resellers of the new Apple product like the latest iPhones and iPads from the Amazon online store website. Notably, the proposed class action in the Seattle federal court objected to an agreement that came into effect on January 2019 (Via Gadgets360).
This lawsuit claims that Apple gave Amazon a 10 percent discount on all of its products in exchange for letting just 7 out of its 600 resellers stay on the e-retailer’s platform. In other words, this basically made Amazon the largest reseller of new iPhones and iPads on its website. The complaint claimed that after the two companies made this move, the prices for certain Apple products rose as much as 10 percent while the iPhone maker focused on stabilizing prices for its retail stores.
The complaint added that “Erecting barriers to entry to keep competitors out and raising prices in the wake of their elimination is precisely the kind of conduct that Congress enacted antitrust laws to prevent. The case is open and shut.” Both firms have yet to give out a statement regarding this matter. But the combined product revenue of the two companies are expected to have topped 125 billion US Dollars in just the third quarter of this year alone. So its clear to say that this alleged collusion if true, had both brands generate billions of dollars.
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