UPDATE: Russia opens case against Apple for retail price control

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MOSCOW, Aug 8 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has brought charges against Apple for alleged coordination of prices of local resellers of the iPhone, the authority said Monday in a statement.

“A case…under the law on protection of competition was opened regarding a group of companies Apple Rus, Apple Holding B.V., Apple Sales Ireland, Apple Operations International, Apple Inc.,” the service said.

The watchdog caught signs of managing price forming on the country’s territory at iPhone resellers that resulted in flat retail prices of smartphones.

The service opened the case upon receipt of a complaint from a citizen on equal prices of the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus, on sale at a local market from October 2015, at 16 large retailers, including Svyaznoy, Euroset, Re:Store, Ulmart, as well as at stores of mobile operators MTS, MegaFon and VimpelCom.

Investigation proved that the bulk of local resellers set flat prices for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus from the moment of their launch and maintained them for some time. The service also found the same prices among retailers for Apple’s other smartphones.

“The Federal Antimonopoly Service thinks that such coincidences could be the result of coordination of price forming among Russian resellers by group of companies Apple, which set prices on the Russian market and forced (sellers) adopt so-called recommended prices as obligatory,” the authority said.

Apple has provided no comments so far.

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