The Commission for the Protection of Competition has initiated ex officio proceedings against Apple products distributer

24.10.2022.

The Commission for the Protection of Competition (“Commission”) initiated proceedings for investigating a violation of competition ex officio against related companies, i.e. Apcom CE Kereskedelmi Korlátolt Felelősségű Társaság from Hungary and APCOM DISTRIBUTION PREDUZEĆA ZA TRGOVINU I USLUGE D.O.O., BEOGRAD from Belgrade in order to determine existence of violation of competition from Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition due to reasonable doubt that the abovementioned companies set prices of Apple product in resale in the Republic of Serbia. As stated on the Commission’s website, due to the abovementioned, the Commission has performed unannounced dawn raids on four locations. It is also highlighted that the Commission, by analyzing competition status on different markets, as well as through insight into publicly available data, has concluded that the prices of certain Apple products in the Republic of Serbia are unified with observed retailers of this brand, regardless of whether retailers have the certain status of Apple authorized dealer or not, and regardless of sales channel, that is, whether it is classic sales in bricks and mortar stores or online sales.

The interesting fact which has also been pointed out on the Commission’s website is that the Commission has detected that, in addition to being unified, the prices of Apple products on the market of the Republic of Serbia are higher compared to the prices in the neighbouring countries, which is why Commission presumed existence of a violation of competition in the form of setting resale prices in the sense of Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition, that is, that companies Apcom Distribution and Apcom from Hungary set the prices of Apple products in resale.