The National Court succumbed to blackmail and suspended the imposition of fines on Amazon and Apple
The National Court yields to Amazon and Apple’s blackmail and temporarily waives fines against these multinational corporations for abuses. Two of the world’s most profitable companies say they can’t afford the fine.
The €194 million fine was imposed by the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), proving that two multinationals had a secret agreement to inflate prices and prevent consumers from accessing competing products. Multinational corporations have threatened to close their businesses under the pretext of the high cost of the fine compared to their income in the Spanish state.
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The National Court has temporarily suspended the fines imposed by the CNMC in July 2023 on Apple and Amazon. It was demonstrated that two US multinationals agreed to and implemented competition restrictions in the Amazon store in Spain, and that this affected third-party resellers of Apple products. The two multinationals say the fines threaten the viability of their businesses. It’s a complete capitalist farce: these are the two richest companies in the world.
The two multinationals had secret agreements to limit the number of resellers of Apple products on Amazon’s website in Spain and limit the advertising space where competing Apple products could be advertised on Amazon’s website. Amazon has also committed to not conduct marketing campaigns aimed at customers of Apple products in order to offer them products from other brands.
The judiciary, in response to an appeal filed by two multinational corporations, temporarily suspended the imposition of fines. It was 128.64 for Apple Distribution International and Apple €15 million (total €143.64 million), as well as €50.51 million for Amazon Services Europe, Amazon Europe Core and Amazon EU. In return, they must provide a guarantee for the specified amounts.
The National Court also suspended the ban imposed on these companies from entering into contracts with public authorities. In this case, they will only have to undertake to stop the actions that led to the imposition of the fine.
The pretext for the two multinationals to appeal the fine is that it will jeopardize the viability of their businesses in Spain. A threat indicating the possibility of withdrawal of investments from multi-million dollar companies of the Spanish state if they are not exempted from the fine.
“These are amounts that are allocated both to the company’s operating expenses (such as payments to suppliers, salaries, etc.) and to capital investments already planned and carried out throughout Europe, including the opening of new distribution centers and warehouses, resulting in closer distribution to customers and therefore more sustainable distribution,” says Amazon.
Amazon, the company of one of the world’s richest men, which is not shy about entering into all sorts of secret agreements, says sanctions account for 25% of its liquid assets. However, the fine for Amazon is 50.51 million euros, when its assets total $210.7 billion and its profits break records every year.
Apple, for its part, states that “payment of a fine may jeopardize Appellants’ ability, incentives and/or ability to invest in the allegedly affected market,” the order states. Apple in 2023 reached the position of the largest company in the world by market capitalization, while the technology company became the largest in the world by revenue. In 2022 alone, they amounted to $394 billion.
This fine for Apple and Amazon is the second largest fine imposed by the CNMC in its history. The highest amount was 203.6 million and was applied to six major construction companies in Spain for changing the competitive process in infrastructure tenders for more than 25 years.
This highlights the level of impunity of large transnational corporations, for which even the most basic bourgeois legality is nothing more than a dead letter. This is not the first time we have seen how various governments and capitalist states shamelessly serve the interests of these companies.