Rolex Fined $100 Million for Thwarting Online Watch Sales
- Penalty follows complaints and raids by French watchdog
- Summary of decision must be posted on watchmaker’s website
Rolex was fined about $100 million by France’s antitrust agency for pursuing an illegal decade-long crackdown on distributors selling the Swiss firm’s luxury watches online.
The Autorite de la Concurrence rejected justifications from Rolex’s French unit that an online ban “was justified by the need to combat counterfeiting and parallel trade.”