In 2012, eBizcuss filed a complaint with the Competition Authority regarding the anti-competitive practices of the Apple group in the market for the distribution of its branded products. Assisted by Sygna Partners, eBizcuss, an independent reseller of Apple products, believed that it had been a victim of these practices.
After eight years of impeccable investigation, the Competition Authority today issued its decision.It finds that the Apple group, in concert with its wholesaler-distributors for the French market, has since 2006, and more particularly since 2010, when it opened its first Apple Stores, applied a strategy aimed at controlling the activity of its independent retailers and then diverting their customers, including eBizcuss, to the benefit of its own distribution network. The Competition Authority imposed a financial penalty, exceptional in its scale, of €1.2 billion, marking the seriousness of the infringement of competition law committed.
This decision reinforces the analysis that eBizcuss and Sygna Partners had made from the outset on the causes of eBizcuss' economic difficulties, which led to the cessation of its activity and the dismissal of more than 100 employees. It crowns the patient action taken since 2012, with the support of Sygna Partners, to establish and sanction the anti-competitive behaviour of the Apple group, which proved particularly damaging to a whole sector of economic activity and to the operators who were present there.
The Sygna Partners team consisted of Professor Jean-Marc Thouvenin and Luke Vidal and Antoine Benech, partners, assisted by Inès Boubaker, Kateryna Romanenko, Thibault Robinne and Léa Simovic, lawyers. It included members of the Regulatory, Competition, Compliance and Dispute Resolution divisions.