Apple Found Guilty Of iPhone Price-Fixing Scheme In Russia

Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) has found tech giant Apple of price-fixing the retail price of Apple devices in the country.

FAS stated last year Apple may have orchestrated a price-fixing scheme in the country via its network of Apple authorized resellers, an allegation Apple clearly denied.

"Resellers set their own selling prices for the Apple products they sell in Russia and around the world," Apple said in August 2016.

Seven months later, Russia's FAS has found Apple guilty.

Apple allegedly told about 16 resellers that they couldn't sell various iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 models below a certain price limit. To this point, the FAS' investigation found that all Apple resellers just so happened to initiate the same pricing structure across multiple iPhone models at launch.

According to Wired, the investigation, which has been ongoing since August, concluded by saying when "inappropriate" prices were set the company e-mailed resellers asking them to reprice the devices. The FAS said that they believe if those selling the phones did not comply with the requests of the seller, it would be possible for Apple to withdraw their ability to sell the iPhones.

The investigation was opened in Russia in August 2016. At that time, Apple had denied it had told resellers to sell devices at certain prices. A spokesperson said: "Resellers themselves set their own prices for the Apple devices which they want to sell in Russia and around the world".

This isn't the first time Apple has been found guilty of enforcing price fixing. In March 2016 the firm was told to pay US$450 million (£367 million) as part of a settlement after the US Supreme Court said it had worked with five publishers to set the price of ebooks.

Apple hasn't yet issued a statement on the ruling but the company reportedly has three months to file a formal defense on the matter of this reselling price. If Apple's appeal falls flat, the company would be subject to fines equal to 15 percent of iPhone sales in the country which will turn to be a huge loss for the company.