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Originally Posted by JMikeD
I wonder from time to time how Apple gets away with price-fixing. I thought there were laws against that sort of thing.
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Not the way you think.
There are laws forbidding retailers from colluding to set a price for a product, as price is assumed to be an area in which they'll compete.
There is no law that requires a manufacturer to sell to a retailer if they don't want to, and they can set a price at which their product will be sold. A retailer that undercuts on the price to gain a competitive edge over other retailers may find he can no longer get products from that manufacturer.
Apple products are popular enough that retailers play by Apple's rules or they don't play at all.
(And I suspect most of them are happy enough to go along, as it removes an area where they must worry about their margins. Consumer electronics is brutally cut throat in the US, with a number of retailers unable to make the cut. CompUSA is the most recent casualty.
Here in NYC, the competition is the grey market discounter who sets up shop, sells below cost, and is out of business in 6 months. How do you compete with that?)
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I learned from the irate publisher guy that in Germany, prices for books are fixed by the publisher. Discounting books is against German law. The EU (and the Swiss, in particular) are upset about this and have challenged it.
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It will be interesting to see where that challenge goes. It's all part of the fun of the EU. It's forcing some rather interesting and painful challenges on member countries so that everyone will do things the same way. I'm not betting either way on the long term prospects of the EU as they attempt to deal with the differences.
Germany is a Prime Mover in the EU. What does it do if Germany says "No! We're not changing this law?"
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Dennis