The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit this Tuesday against Amazon in which it accuses the company of exercising “monopoly power” to prevent sellers on its platform from selling their cheaper products outside of Amazon or the one marked by the company’s own products. marketplaceamong other practices.
“The actions of Amazon allowed it to prevent its rivals and sellers from lowering prices, harmed quality for buyers, led to excessive payments to sellers, stifled innovation and prevented its rivals from competing fairly against them,” says the US government agency in a statement. FTC The damage caused by Amazon to the distribution sector is estimated at “hundreds of billions of dollars a year” and the buyers affected by the measure are estimated at more than 100 million.
The lawsuit accuses Amazon to penalize in the search criteria sellers on its platform who tried to sell their products at a lower price than the one set by the company.
In a very harsh tone, the US organization does not hesitate to call these practices “punitive for those affected” and accuses the company of raising market prices and harm millions of families in the country.
“Rarely in the history of US antitrust law has a case had the potential to do so much good for so many people,” says the director of the FTC’s Competition Department, John Newman. The lawsuit asks for the permanent cessation of these practices by the company, which has a capitalization of more than one billion dollars and whose shares have fallen 2.6%