US regulator, 17 states sue Amazon for anticompetitive, unfair practices

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 states charged Amazon on Tuesday, alleging that the company is a monopolist using anticompetitive and unfair practices.

"The FTC and its state partners say Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon," the watchdog said in a statement.

"The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging. By stifling competition on price, product selection, quality, and by preventing its current or future rivals from attracting a critical mass of shoppers and sellers, Amazon ensures that no current or future rival can threaten its dominance," it added.

The FTC and the states allege that Amazon’s anticompetitive behavior is taking place in the online superstore market that serves shoppers and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers.

They said the behaviors include anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet.

Another practice is conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain "Prime" eligibility for their products on sellers using the company’s costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms.

"Our complaint lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the statement. "Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition."

"We’re bringing this case because Amazon’s illegal conduct has stifled competition across a huge swath of the online economy. Amazon is a monopolist that uses its power to hike prices on American shoppers and charge sky-high fees on hundreds of thousands of online sellers," said John Newman, deputy director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition.