Italy: Italian Competition Authority imposes fine on Amazon and Apple for anti-competitive agreement

On 23 November 2021, the Italian Competition Authority fined Apple and Amazon for limiting resellers of "genuine" Apple and Beats branded products from accessing the Amazon.it marketplace. Specifically, the Authority discovered that an agreement was signed on 31 October 2018 between the two companies which barred official and unofficial resellers of Apple and Beats items from using Amazon.it. This discrimination of chosen individual subjects represents a violation of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The inquiry found that the objective was to impose a quantitative limit on the number of sellers, allowing only Amazon and a select group of individuals to operate on Amazon.it. As a result, the Authority sanctioned Amazon with a monetary penalty of 68.7 million euros and Apple with a monetary penalty of 134.5 million euros, while ordering both businesses to lift the limits and provide non-discriminatory access to Amazon.co.uk to resellers of "genuine" Apple and Beats items.