A French competition wtachdog has found US tech giant Apple guilty of unfairly agreeing prices for sales of its wares in France with certain wholesalers, to the detriment of others, and fined the company 1.1 billion euros.
US tech company Apple has been fined 25 million euros by a French competition watchdog for failing to tell iPhone users that a software update throttled the performance of older iPhones, a problem that could be fixed by replacing the battery but which may have encouraged some to replace their smartphone for a new device.
At the end of a legal case brought by tech giant Apple against alter-globalisation organisation ATTAC, in which the tech giant sought a three-year ban on activists demonstrating in and outside its stores in France to highlight the firm’s tax-avoidance schemes, a Paris court has ruled in favour of ATTAC, describing its campaign as being in the “general interest”. Martine Orange reports.
In an extraordinary move, American tech giant Apple this week applied before a Paris court for a three-year ban to be imposed on alter-globalisation group ATTAC from continuing with its recent demonstrations at the company’s stores in France in a campaign to denounce its tax-dodging practices. Mediapart economics and business correspondent Martine Orange was in court to follow the hearing which, she reports here, has above all served to further tarnish the iPhone maker's image.
A French consumer association has filed a lawsuit against US smartphone maker Apple and Japanese printer manufacturer Epson for allegedly deliberately designing their products to fail after a shorter period than would otherwise occur in order to spur new sales.
Apple boss Tim Cook, after meeting with the company’s suppliers and developers in northern France and visiting graves at the site of the Normandy landings, met with Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday, amid a drive by the French president and other European leaders to force a number tech and web-based giants to pay taxes where their activities are based.