Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is facing investigations from Canadian regulators on allegations that the tech giant is stifling competition through wordings in its terms of agreements with Canadian mobile phone carriers, according to Canada’s Competition Bureau on Thursday. No liability has been found on Apple’s Canadian unit so far, but the bureau filed a request with a court on Tuesday to order Apple to surrender documents and records pertaining to the investigation.
According to Greg Scott, a spokesman for the Competition Bureau, the Competition Tribunal has not received any complaints so far for remediation of any supposed anti-competitive acts. He added that if evidence shows that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) violated the provisions of the Competition Act, necessary action shall be undertaken by the Commissioner. It was not revealed who made such allegations, or how it came to the attention of the bureau.
According to The Register, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Canada unit is being investigated regarding anti-competition clauses under its contract with Canadian carriers covering the supply of iPhones. Investigators are trying to determine if the supply contracts between the networks and Apple are anticompetitive in nature.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have been the subject of several other antitrust investigations in the past. The previous year, for instance, the European Commission has surveyed 9 european wireless carriers with questionnaires designed to determine if Apple’s contracts prevented competitors from gaining better sales terms. Short of making a formal probe, the survey also sought to determine if Apple required a minimum number of iPhone sales, and whether technical restrictions was put in place to prevent iPhone 5 from running under European high speed 4G networks. Also last year, competition regulators in France investigated Apple over its selling practice. An Apple reseller in France alleged that the company favored deliveries of supplies to its own stores, driving the reseller into bankruptcy.
This article has been written by Nonito Guntan.
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