Sam Oliver
The French government's competition authority recently conducted a raid of Apple's local headquarters that lasted 24 hours, seizing documents as part of an ongoing government antitrust investigation.
Details of the raid were first reported last week by Mac4Ever, and were later confirmed by LesEchos.fr. Investigators are said to be interested in the relationship between Apple and its distributors in France.
The investigation was reportedly spurred by a premium reseller in France, eBizcuss, which went bankrupt last year. The company then filed a complaint against Apple accusing it of unfair competition.
Apple was accused of favoring its own retail stores rather than resellers like eBizcuss, which exclusively sold Apple products. The reseller said it was often difficult to obtain the latest models of new Apple products, while Apple's own stores were well stocked.
The French competition authority has also reportedly taken interest in Apple's iOS App Store, after the company increased the minimum selling price for magazines and newspapers last year. The authority is said to be looking into whether Apple is abusing its power for digital downloads as well.
Apple also came under fire from the French government last month when the company ward ordered to pay $6.5 million in 2011 taxes for iPad sales. The mandate came from a French professional association that collects revenue for artists' copyrighted works.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
94 Comments
Il sont fous, les Françaises
That's out of line, raiding the offices of a productive company like it was no different than a den of criminals. Who would want to do business in that country? In the town where I live, the third party Apple exclusive retailer closed 2 weeks before the Apple Store opened. He had the *brains* to realise the writing was on the wall, unlike the person suing in this story.
A raid, like there was a bank robber in the offices? And the French wonder why the world makes French jokes? The loss of a business is unfortunate no doubt, but this happens when larger retailers compete against boutiques.
My former life was heavily involved with the reseller world. The claims that this French reseller is valid but there isn't much you can about it. The smart resellers adapt and get more into consulting and differentiate themselves from Apple. The resellers who don't close up shop and complain how horrible Apple is. What they don't realize is if it wasn't for Apple in the first place they would have never had a business. There is more money than ever to be made in the Apple world, but it isn't in Apple hardware sales.
I think, its fun to be in France to see stupid things like this.