The Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) is the organization responsible for ensuring that businesses in the UK compete fairly with each other. Its main function is Monitor companies and take action against those who don’t follow the rules. The idea is to respect the rules of the free market as much as possible.
New legislation has now been drafted in the UK which could give this public body direct sanctioning powers. Until the law is approved, every case has to go through a court, and when it is approved, it’s no longer the case. It will be the administration itself that can impose a sanction of “up to 10% of its worldwide sales”. That’s a lot of money. We see it.
A fine that fits the budgets of Ireland
In a statement, the CMA said it appreciates this pending bill must be approved by the House of Commons (the equivalent of the lower house in any bicameral system, like the Congress of Deputies in Spain).
It’s normal that you like it, since gives the entity much more power as before. It gives you the authority (or what in my field is called “prerogative over administration”) to impose sanctions without having to go to court first.
This does not apply to all businesses, but does apply to those that exceed £25bn in global sales or £1bn in the UK. Apple does bothTherefore, if this measure is approved, it could be investigated and sanctioned by the CMA itself.
That would be about a third of Apple’s global profits in 2022
Recall that this public body has already issued a report stating that Apple’s policies regarding the ban on third-party applications were practices contrary to consumers Maybe you’re rubbing your hands right now.
Let’s talk numbers. Apple’s global business volume in 2022 was $393 billion. A 10% penalty would be $39.3 billion, or what is the same more than six times the Spanish education and training budget in 2022. Not bad at all.
Anyway, this is still a draft. It is not approved and the same is never approved. The political situation in the UK is tense and it is usually not interesting to authorize very drastic measures in these cases for fear of public opinion. In any case, if approved, companies like Apple, Google or Amazon could face historic finesand without going through the court.
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Source : www.applesfera.com