Apple and Amazon are accused of colluding to raise the price of iPhones and iPads
According to a new antitrust lawsuit filed in Washington, Apple and Amazon colluded to raise iPhone and iPad prices by eliminating third-party Amazon sellers who offered Apple products at a lower price.
Amazon is again at the center of a lawsuit alleging anti-competitive tactics related to its online storefront, and this time Apple is also the subject of the same complaint. Indeed, law firm Hagens Berman, which has previously taken on the two companies and coerced Apple into paying more than half a billion dollars in separate cases, has now filed a new lawsuit alleging a shady deal that wiped out 98% of third-party resellers from the e-commerce platform.
The lawsuit alleges that Amazon is the largest online electronics retailer, which it holds approximately 82% of the market and that it sells Apple products directly while allowing third-party users to sell new or used devices. However, most of these have recently been removed from the e-commerce giant’s site.
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Amazon leaves the field open to Apple on its online sales site
According to the complaint, Amazon would therefore have removed almost all Apple resellers from its Marketplace site as part of a “horizontal agreement”. HAShen there were about 600 before, only 7 third-party resellers would still offer iPhones on Amazon today.
The class action lawsuit also highlights an agreement that came into effect in January 2019, under which Apple was giving Amazon discounts of up to 10% on its products if it cleaned up third-party resellers on its site. By preventing sellers from offering Apple products, Amazon has obviously established itself as the dominant seller of those products on the Amazon Marketplace, which both Amazon and Apple have ” benefited “, even if it has ” harmed the public “.
Consumer Steven Floyd says that “ the illegal boycott agreement between Apple and Amazon forced him to pay $319.99 for an iPad when he should have been able to benefit from a reduction in a “normal competitive market”. As a reminder, Apple recently significantly increased the price of its iPhones and iPads, and leaving the field open to third-party resellers could have had a major impact on the profits of both companies.
