Throughout the past year, we echoed various reports stating that Apple was abusing its position in South Korea to oblige the country's telephone operators to pay in full the cost of advertising their devices. It was then that the Korean competition court got down to business.
It was not the first complaint that the company received from the operators, since previously they had also denounced that it also obliges them to pay the installation and repair costs of the Apple stands that they must have in all the stores that the operators have distributed in the main cities in addition to sell a certain number of devices.
Once the brokerage process has started, Apple has tried to defend itself. According to Apple, its actions are fully justified since the sale of iPhones in South Korear not only favors Apple, but also favors all local operators in the country. As we can read in The Korea Herald:
During the second round of deliberations held last week, Apple claimed that its actions were justifiable, claiming that the company has an advantage over local mobile phone operators in terms of bargaining and but did not have any real power that it can exercise.
That "he has no real power that he can exercise ..." it's very relative, because Apple can refuse to sell its devices to an operator if it does not meet the requirements imposed on it, requirements that all operators are forced to meet if they want to have the iPhone in their catalog.
Regarding the issue of advertising, Apple affirms that this benefits both the company and the mobile phone operators in the country, so the action is also fully justified. South Korea's competition court disagrees with these allegations and affirms that Apple has a clear advantage over the telephone operators.