Apple's fine slashed in French court case involving Ingram and Tech Data

Trio were originally accused of 'sterilising' the French channel

Apple has claimed a partial victory in a long-running French anti-trust court battle in which distributors Tech Data and Ingram were also embroiled.

According to Reuters, a French court yesterday lowered Apple's fine to €372m, down from the €1.1bn fine originally handed out by France's competition watchdog in 2020.

Tech Data and Ingram were fined a respective €76.1m and €62.9m, although the latter confirmed at the time that it would appeal the decision.

The trio were accused of running an illegal cartel in France, fixing prices, and "sterilising" the French channel between 2005 and 2013.

According to Reuters, the appeals court backed the competition watchdog's charge that Apple abused the dependency of Apple Premium Resellers on the company. However, it lowered the fine after tossing a fixed-pricing charge, according to sources quoted in the article.

"While the court correctly reversed part of the French Competition Authority's decision, we believe it should be overturned in full and plan to appeal," Apple said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"The decision relates to practices from more than a decade ago that even the (French authority) recognised are no longer in use."

In its annual 10k report for its fiscal 2021, TD Synnex gave an update on Tech Data's appeal, saying that the "best estimate" of probable losses from the affair stood at €36m (less than half the original sum) at the time of writing.

In a statement sent to Channel Partner Insight this morning, Tech Data said it welcomed yesterday's ruling.

"Tech Data, A TD SYNNEX Company, is pleased that the court took the company's arguments into account in this ruling, but we will carefully analyze the decision to determine any potential next steps. As always, we continue to abide by a strong set of ethical and legal compliance standards as per the Company's Shared Principles (available in multiple languages at https://ir.tdsynnex.com/governance/default.aspx) in addition to our shared values of integrity, excellence, collaboration and inclusion," it said.

Ingram declined to comment.