ICA announces investigation into Apple and Amazon

On 22 July the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) announced it has opened an investigation against Apple and Amazon for alleged violation of article 101 TFEU.

The conducts investigated by the ICA stemmed from a complaint, according to which Apple and Amazon have agreed in 2018 to remove from Amazon's marketplace resellers of Apple and Beats branded products (that legitimately purchased the products) not participating in Apple's authorized resellers program.

In its decision opening proceedings, ICA stresses that Apple and Amazon are competitors (not only in the online sales of electronic products but also at the production level). The investigated conducts are therefore of horizontal nature and ICA is concerned about a possible reduction of players selling Apple and Beat branded products online together with a possible reduction of price competition.

Some interesting aspects emerge from ICA decision.

To start with, ICA further demonstrates that - following the COVID 19 emergency - it is still prepared to investigate potential antitrust violations. In the course of 2020 ICA has been very active in investigating alleged violations of consumer protection rules. However, as this case shows together with some recent investigations in the cinema and in the gas sector, this does not imply any relaxation in the enforcement of antitrust provisions (in line with the position ICA expressed in its notice on horizontal cooperation during the pandemic).

It should also be noted that ICA press release indicates that dawn raids have been conducted at Amazon Italia Services S.r.l. and Apple Italia S.r.l.'s premises: this is an additional signal that enforcement in Italy is now back to normality.

In terms of priorities, ICA decision evidences the specific relevance online sales have in these days (and this can certainly be read as a reference to the pandemic), and stresses that the investigated conducts may have harmed consumers. However, even though such aspects are certainly relevant for the ICA, more in general the investigation appears coherent with the position recently expressed by Commissioner Vestager and by several National Competition Authorities worldwide: tech/web giants are currently under scrutiny. This is demonstrated by the fact that, as known, in March Apple has been hit by a very severe fine in France (for more details please refer to this article) and in Italy the Apple/Amazon case is the third case pending against Amazon (one of the other two pending cases has been opened based on consumer protection rules while the other is based on article 102 TFEU).

It will be very interesting to see the ICA final decision on the Apple/Amazon case. In any event, this case in another indication that competition law enforcers are vigilant on how web and tech companies are changing the word.