An Apple store in Santa Monica, California. Photo: Shutterstock.com

France's antitrust authority fined Apple a record-high €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) Monday, ruling that the U.S.-based tech giant had entered into cartel-like agreements with two wholesalers and abused its market position and economic power to impose higher prices to resellers.

The two wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, were fined €76.1 million ($84.9 million) and €62.9 million ($70.2 million), respectively, bringing the total fines to €1.24 billion, also a record high, according to a statement from the Autorité de la Concurrence.

That the total fines were the highest ever assessed in one case by the French authority, and Apple's fine was the highest ever assessed on one company, underscores the "strong impact of these practices on competition" and the "particularly serious" nature of Apple's actions, Isabelle da Silva, president of the competition authority, said in a statement.

Apple said that it would appeal.

The case dates back to a 2012 complaint by eBizcuss, an Apple premium reseller, or a retailer of specialized high-end Apple products. It applied to iPads and other premium Apple products but not to iPhones, the authority said.

The investigation found that Apple divided its products and customers between the two wholesalers, which "somewhat 'sterilized' the wholesale market for Apple products, freezing market share and preventing competition between the different distribution channels," the authority said.

Trading on its position as a must-have product, Apple imposed selling prices on premium resellers so that their prices would match those charged by Apple in its retail stores and on its website, the authority said. "The practice resulted in aligning the selling prices of Apple products for end consumers in almost half the retail market for Apple products," according to the authority.

Finally, the authority found that Apple abused premium resellers' economic dependency by treating them less favorably than the company's own stores—depriving them of stocks of new products, for example, while Apple stores were regularly supplied—thereby weakening or even excluding them from the retail market.

"While a manufacturer is free to organize its distribution system as it sees fit," the authority wrote, it is prohibited under competition law to "undermine competition between its wholesalers by pre-allocating customers to them, to have an agreement with its distributors on the retail prices charged to end consumers, or to abuse the situation of economic dependency of its trading partners, in particular by placing them at a disadvantage compared with its own internal distribution network."

An Apple spokesman, Josh Rosenstock, termed the authority's decision "disheartening" in a statement Monday, adding that it related "to practices from over a decade ago and discards 30 years of legal precedent that all companies in France rely on with an order that will cause chaos for companies over all industries." He could not be reached immediately for further explanation.

Competition authorities in Europe have been intensifying their scrutiny of big technology companies, taking their cues from the EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, who has promised to present new regulations aimed at ensuring fair competition in the sector.

The Autorité de la Concurrence in France is an independent administrative body that functions like a court, issuing opinions, pronouncing injunctions and levying fines. Its decisions are subject to appeal to the Court of Appeal of Paris, which rules on disputes of facts and judgment, and to the Court of Cassation, which rules on procedure.

The previous record antitrust fine assessed by the authority was €350 million on Orange, the former French telecommunications monopoly, in 2015. The authority ruled that Orange had abused its dominant position by offering loyalty discounts and other pricing strategies that could discourage customers from switching to new competitors in the market. Orange said it would change its practices as a result of the ruling, which the company did not appeal.