Apple Operations in France Searched by Authorities Over Anti-Trust Allegations

Apple appears to be under investigation by the French Autorite de la Concurrence. The antitrust watchdog’s investigators have visited Apple’s French subsidiary and performed a 24-hour search to seize documents revealing Apple’s relationship with distributors, the French Les Échos reports (via Marketwatch).

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The investigation comes at the height of complaints from Apple Premium reseller eBizcuss. The entity filed a lawsuit against Apple charging the company with abuse of dominance, abuse of economic dependence and unfair competition.

According to Le Échos’ sources, around fifteen stores went bankrupt in France just last year (among them eBizcuss) due to product shortages and decreasing lines of credit.

But this doesn’t end here. The French Competition Authority is seeking answers from Apple, Google and Amazon regarding their application store. Last year Apple has fixed the price of newspapers and magazines in the App Store, raising the prices, but the group of publishers Geste has seen Apple’s move as a unilateral and brutal decision. Also, Apple’s “spring cleaning” which included the removal of AppGratis from the App Store was considered brutal by French authorities, raising concerns of abuse of dominance.

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