A federal judge in Seattle has accused Apple and Amazon of manipulating the prices of iPhones and iPads. Credit: Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash.

A federal judge in Seattle, US has accused tech giant Apple and e-commerce retailer Amazon of manipulating prices on certain products, Reuters reported.

Judge John Coughenour of the US District Court Western District of Washington at Seattle ruled that the two companies must face a consumer antitrust lawsuit for conspiring to artificially inflate the price of iPhones and iPads sold on Amazon’s platform.

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According to Reuters, Coughenour rejected bids from the two companies to dismiss the prospective class action on various legal grounds.

Lawyers and representatives for Apple and Amazon did not immediately respond when contacted for comments.

The plaintiffs include US customers who purchased new iPhones and iPads on Amazon’s platform in January 2019.

The lawsuit alleged that Amazon had hundreds of third-party Apple resellers active on its platform as of 2018.

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As per the plaintiffs, the two companies had an agreement that violated antitrust provisions by restricting the number of competitive resellers.

Known as the “Global Tenets Agreement (GTA)”, which came into effect on 1 January 2019, the agreement required the e-commerce giant to allow only Apple-authorised sellers to sell Apple products on Amazon’s marketplace.

In exchange, Apple would provide a steady supply of its products to Amazon at a discounted rate.

The agreement led to a decrease in the number of sellers to seven.

Apple reportedly recorded $94.8bn in sales in the second quarter while Amazon recorded $127.4bn in its latest quarterly result.

The court’s ruling comes close after Amazon reached a settlement of $25m following allegations that the company violated children’s privacy rights through its popular voice assistant, Alexa.