The Federal Antimonopoly service (FAS) of Russia has tentatively concluded that Apple’s guilt in coordinating the prices of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus in Russia. About it journalists were reported by the head of Department for combating cartels FAS Andrey Tenishev.
“The Committee of the FAS — illegal economic coordination, which has led to higher prices in the retail market of sales of the iPhone”, – he said.
At the same time, the FAS does not rule out a settlement agreement with Apple about the pricing of the iPhone. About this stated the head of FAS Igor Artemyev.
“We continue our investigation, we have a certain set of evidence. Given that Apple, unlike some other companies, from the very beginning cooperated with us and we had the dialogue, we continue to discuss with them the different options of this case,” — said Artemyev. He added that “the good does not preclude a conclusion in this case.”
The head of the service did not comment on the results of the investigation in relation to the price of iPhone 7, noting that the verification of the FAS is still ongoing.
In early August of last year the Antimonopoly service has announced the initiation of a case against Apple, seeing signs of coordination of pricing in Russia Resellers on the model of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Proceedings under part 5 of article 11 of the law on protection of competition had been brought against groups of individuals consisting of LLC “Apple Rus”, the Apple Holding B. V., Apple Sales Ireland Apple Operations International, Apple Inc.
The investigation FAS revealed that from the beginning of official sales of iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus in Russia the majority of Resellers established for them the same prices and kept them for some time. In addition, the Antimonopoly Agency was set to match the prices of Resellers and to other models of smartphones Apple. As noted in the FAS, Apple could face a penalty of from 1 to 5 million rubles.
