Amusingly it seems that the answer could be yes: Apple could be forced to close down its retail operations in Italy. It depends upon whether they decide to knuckle under to a recent court ruling or whether they want to continue to ignore the fines they owe.
As background, Italian law insists that all electronic items be sold with a no extra cost 2 year warranty (as do several other Southern EU countries). The seller must also inform customers of this fact: I've been told more times than I care to remember about this fact in Portugal as I buy this gizmo or that.
Apple has been accused of not so informing people and further, found guilty of that as well as then going on to sell them an AppleCare package which provides the same deal as that legally necessary free warranty: but at a fee. This has led to the Italian authorities imposing fines upon Apple:
The Italian authorities have already slapped Cupertino with a €900,000 fine over the issue, but now the authorities have threatened to close all Apple stores in the country for 30 days and impose an additional €300,000 in fines, Reuters reports.
In January, Apple confirmed it was appealing the original fine, €400,000 of which comes for not offering the two-year warranty and €500,000 for signing up people to their protection racket AppleCare service. This appeal was denied in May, and Apple was ordered to open its capacious wallet and sort out the fine.
If Apple doesn't pay those fines then said authorities are threatening a temporary closure of all of Apple's retail operations in the country: presumably until they do pay the fines.
The larger point to be noted here, for all of us who do business internationally, is that when we're in a foreign country we are subject to the laws of that foreign country. They may not be how we'd like to do business, they may not be to our liking, but they are the laws in the place we are conducting business. Yes, even if they directly conflict with our own laws at home. So we do have to obey them.
