Apple and Amazon have once again got into trouble with regulators in Europe. The US tech giants, who have been in constant tussle with watchdogs around the world, over antitrust practices were handed more than €200 million ($225 million) in fines by Italy’s antitrust authority.

The fine was for alleged anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple and Beats products. The duo was caught cooperating to narrow the number of sellers allowed to sell some products in Amazon, which according to the watchdog, violates European Union’s anti-competition rules.

“Contractual provisions of a 2018 agreement between the companies meant only selected resellers were allowed to sell Apple and Beats products on Amazon.it,” the watchdog said, adding that this was in violation of European Union rules and affected competition on prices.

The authority imposed a fine of 68.7 million euros on Amazon and 134.5 million euros on Apple, ordering the companies to end the restrictions to give retailers of genuine Apple and Beats products access to Amazon.it in a non-discriminatory manner.

Both Apple and Amazon denied any wrongdoing and said they plan to appeal against the fines, a response they had given in past cases.

“To ensure our customers purchase genuine products, we work closely with our reseller partners and have dedicated teams of experts around the world who work with law enforcement, customs and merchants to ensure only genuine Apple products are being sold,” Apple said in response to the fine.

Amazon also, reacting to fine, called it “disproportionate and unjustified”, saying it strongly disagreed with the decision of the Italian authority.

“We reject the suggestion that Amazon benefits by excluding sellers from our store, since our business model relies on their success. As a result of the agreement, Italian customers can find the latest Apple and Beats products on our store, benefiting from a catalogue that more than doubled, with better deals and faster shipping,” Amazon said.

Europe has been gearing up to confront the excesses of tech companies, amending its antitrust rules to accommodate new developments in the tech industry.

In July, Amazon was handed a record-breaking €746 million (roughly $887 million) fine under the EU signature privacy law, known as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Officials in Europe and the UK have increasingly been scrutinizing the business practices of the companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google amid allegations they have harmed competition and abused consumer privacy.

US companies have been largely at the receiving end of new GDPR rules, receiving record-breaking penalties each at a time. With each fine, European regulators seem more determined to zero in on the Big Tech, while the tech giants appear more determined to contest it. It is going to be a long faceoff.

Do you know that a master or an employer is held responsible for the actions of the servant or an employee under the employer during the employee’s ordinary course of doing his or her job. 

It is called vicarious liability.

Vicarious liability is a form of strict liability under the common law doctrine in which a secondary liability arises placing the superior responsible for the acts and actions of the inferior and the employers or masters which is said to be the secondary parties can be held indirectly liable for an injury caused by the employee  even though the employer was not directly involved in the act.

This is usually a recurring incident in workplaces whereby an employee commits a tortious act and the employer is strictly and vicariously held liable for the actions and inactions of the employees; for those actions carried out by the employee during an ordinary course of him doing his job or carrying out his assignment. 

The point of vicarious liability is to the effect that an employer is liable for an employee’s negligent actions if they were committed in the course or scope of the employee’s employment or are closely connected with what the employee is authorised by the employer to do. It is the common law that the acts of the employee are authorized by the employer during the course of him carrying out his job description  and therefore, the employer must be held responsible for all the acts carried out by the employee during the course of him doing his job.

For instance, if a company driver while delivering the company goods gets involved in an accident and a bystander dies as a result of that accident, the company driver will be held responsible for the accident so also the employer of the driver which is the company will also be held strictly and vicariously responsible for the death of the bystander which resulted from the accident that the driver got into. 

The Nigerian police force according to this common law principle of vicarious liability will be held responsible for the actions and the inactions of every police officer under their employment because it is presumed that every action of a police officer carried out during the course of his duty is authorized and sanctioned by his employer which is the Nigerian police force.

Be it as it may, there are ingredients or elements that must be present before Vicarious liability can successfully be prayed; firstly, it must be established that a negligent person was employed. Secondly, the negligent person was acting within the scope of his employment or that the employer authorized the employee to act and lastly, that the employer later ratified the employee’s acts.

Just as it is notable that in every general rule of law there must be an exception: there are exceptions to this common law principle of vicarious liability one of which is that the employee acted on frolic of his own and that his actions were outside the scope of his job description, in that way the employer can disassociate himself from the wrongful actions of the employee and won’t be thereby held to be indirectly responsible for the actions and inactions of his employee. 

Thank you – we are seeing massive registrations for the next edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA. It is the most optimized academic excursion you will experience. Beat the early registration deadline and get the early benefits. A member called Tekedia Live “the best thing on business education in Africa”. We bring founders, business leaders, and policy drivers, and help everyone become better on the mechanics of markets.

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I have used this photo to teach in a military academy, a big bank and a global supply chain company, this month. At Tekedia Institute, we try to build analogies from simple things. Yes, just as the four Jamaicans beat the world’s 100 meters records when they ran together, a great team will outperform any great solo player. Collaborate, partner and work together.

Usain Bolt  ran the world’s best 9.58 seconds for 100 meters. But four Jamaicans ran the 4 x 100 meters relay at 36.84 seconds. If you run the numbers, each became better, running 100 meters, on average, at 9.21 seconds, when they ran together.

Simply, by running together, they beat the individual world’s 100 meters record. Collaborate, partner and advance together.

Beat the world’s record >> work as a team.

Comment on LinkedIn Post

Here, most times, I write to read Francis Oguaju’s comment. Read this comment on the Usain Bolt post – https://lnkd.in/eXT6r7GJ) . Today, Nigeria has scored another own-goal: “Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said that Nigerians would get N5,000 per month as a transportation grant after the removal of fuel subsidies.” If you cannot run fuel subsidies well, do you have any chance to distribute N5,000 monthly effectively?

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said that Nigerians would get N5,000 per month as a transportation grant after the removal of fuel subsidies.

According to the Minister, the Federal Government will remove fuel subsidies by 2022 and give the poorest Nigerians a transportation grant of N5,000.

Ahmed said this on Tuesday, at the launch of the World Bank Nigeria Development Update in Abuja, stating that about 30 to 40 million Nigerians, who are the poorest in the country, would have access to the grant.

She said, “The subsidies regime in the [oil] sector remains unsustainable and economically disingenuous