Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

ECA Eliminates Contracts between Apple, Distributors


Sun 09 Dec 2018 | 11:00 PM
Taarek Refaat

By: Taarek Refaat

CAIRO, Dec. 9 (SEE)- The Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) decided on Sunday to invalidate standard contracts between Apple and its distributors for violating the provisions of the competition protection law.

The Authority said that the decision comes as Apple contracts isolate the Egyptian market geographically from inter-competition including the prohibition of parallel import and exclusive distribution agreements, which violates Article 7 of the Law.

The company's monopolistic activities have led to a hike in the prices of Apple products in Egypt beyond the prices in neighboring Gulf states and the United States.

On his part, the Chairman of the Board of Directors Amir Nabil indicated that Apple, through its marketing policy, banned non-counterfeit parallel imports, and prevented its authorized distributors abroad from contracting in Egypt.

Nabil added that this cartel conduct empowered the company and enabled it to deprive the Egyptian consumer of locating competitive prices elsewhere. "The inter-competition between the same product is no less important than competition between different products in any market," he noted.

Inter-competition helps to increase the efficiency of distribution networks and helps reduce prices among distributors in the interest of the consumer.