Russian antitrust sees no Apple’s wrongdoing in iPhone 7 price

MOSCOW, Jan 18 (PRIME) -- Apple does not resist scrutiny of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service into price forming of the iPhone 7 smartphone, but a final decision will be made by February, the authority’s Director Igor Artemyev told reporters on Wednesday.

“An active process is going on there. I can say that in general we see no serious wrongdoing on the part of Apple. Here, unlike Google, which, on the contrary, took another standing, we see a regular process. We are discussing what is right. It concerns price forming and spare parts,” Artemyev said.

“I think, by the end of January we’ll have a 90% understanding where we are, and we’ll end everything in February.”

The antitrust service opened the case against Apple over signs of price coordination for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus in August 2016. The investigation proved that the bulk of local resellers had set the same prices for the devices from the start of sales and held them for some time.

The service also saw equal prices of other Apple’s smartphones, including the new flagship iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

The antitrust authority delayed on Monday hearing of a case against a local office of Apple on a complaint of an iPhone user, who was refused to replace a damaged screen by service centers, until January 25 due to the impossibility to hear it when scheduled, on Tuesday.

Apple does not bring spare parts to the country, which infringes the consumer interests, the watchdog said earlier.

(59.4015 rubles – U.S. $1)

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