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According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Cupertino-based company has been preventing mobile service providers and distributors on making their own decisions on the iPhone pricing. The information was disclosed by the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission on Wesnesday.
Evidences of Apple's price manipulation came from three major service providers including Chunghwa Telecom Co., Far Eastone Telecommunication Co. and Taiwan Mobile Co. The said companies alleged that Apple forced them to price the iPhones according to its desire. The iPad pricing was excluded on the case and there were no plans of investigating about it as well.
The commission told WSJ that Apple violated Article 18 because it kept imposing the prices even after the sale. The service providers and distributors' distribution rights were violated in the process.
"Through the email correspondence between Apple and these three telecom companies we discovered the companies submit their pricing plans to Apple to be approved or confirmed before the products hit the market," it said in a statement to WSJ.
The commission clarified that Apple can still appeal the case but it couldn't ignore the fine for it will increase to NT$50 million, or US$1.675 billion. Aside from the fine, the commission ordered Apple to stop interfering with the iPhone pricing.
Apple Taiwan cannot be reached for comments as of press time.
Price manipulation is nothing new for Apple. Just this year, the company was under fire for the e-book price manipulation to take on Amazon.com. Apple allegedly conspired with five major e-book publishers in the U.S for fixed pricing. The court already ordered Apple to stay away from any negotiations with any publishers for at least five years and a fine amounting to hundreds of thousands dollars as well. However, the case is still not yet final since Apple plans to appeal the case in 2014.
