Apple and Amazon must be held accountable in the US for pushing up iPhone prices

A federal judge in Seattle, USA, rules that Apple and Amazon must answer for the lawsuit in an antitrust case. The tech companies are being sued for artificially inflating the prices of iPhones and iPads on Amazon’s platform.

The tech companies became in November already sued by United States consumers who purchased an iPhone or iPad via Amazon’s platform after January 2019. According to the complaint, the agreement between Apple and Amazon to limit the number of Apple third-party sellers on the platform took effect that year.

In 2018, there were still 600 Apple resellers active on the platform, but a year later they almost all disappeared from Amazon’s website. The prices of Apple products would subsequently increase have risen more than 10 percent. In addition, discounts of 20 percent on Apple products would no longer be common, which was the case before.

Apple has reportedly agreed with Amazon to give a discount on its products if Amazon reduces the number of third-party Apple sellers on the platform. According to Apple the company has limited the number of resellers to reduce counterfeit products on the platform. The tech company also states that this is an ‘everyday agreement’.

US Federal Judge John Coughenour rejected earlier this week however, the tech companies’ attempt to drop the charges. This means that the lawsuit will continue to collect evidence against Apple and Amazon, among other things. According to plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman, the judge’s decision to prosecute the case is “a major victory for consumers of Apple phones and iPads.”

In October last year, an Italian court canceled a fine of more than 173 million euros imposed by market authority AGCM. In this case, the tech giants were also sued for restricting the sale of Apple and Beats products through Amazon.