Italy’s antitrust watchdog mentioned it had fined Amazon 1.13 billion euros ($1.28 billion) for alleged abuse of market dominance, in one of many greatest penalties imposed on a U.S. tech large in Europe.
Amazon mentioned it “strongly disagreed” with the Italian regulator’s determination and would enchantment.
International regulatory scrutiny of tech giants has been rising after a string of scandals over privateness and misinformation, in addition to complaints from some companies that they abuse their market energy.
In addition to Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Facebook Inc , Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp have drawn heightened scrutiny in Europe.
Italy’s watchdog mentioned in an announcement that Amazon had leveraged its dominant place within the Italian marketplace for intermediation companies on marketplaces to favour the adoption of its personal logistics service – Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) – by sellers lively on Amazon.it.
The authority mentioned Amazon tied to using FBA entry to a set of unique advantages, together with the Prime label, that assist improve visibility and increase gross sales on Amazon.it.
“Amazon prevents third-party sellers from associating the Prime label with presents not managed with FBA,” it mentioned.
The Prime label makes it simpler to promote to the greater than 7 million most loyal and high-spending shoppers members of Amazon’s loyalty program.
The antitrust authority additionally mentioned it will impose corrective steps that might be topic to evaluate by a monitoring trustee.
Amazon mentioned FBA “is a very elective service” and that almost all of third-party sellers on Amazon don’t use it.
“When sellers select FBA, they achieve this as a result of it’s environment friendly, handy and aggressive when it comes to worth”, the U.S. group mentioned in an announcement.
“The proposed fantastic and treatments are unjustified and disproportionate”, it added.
The EU Fee mentioned it had cooperated intently with the Italian competitors authority on the case, inside the framework of the European Competitors Community, to make sure consistency with its two personal ongoing investigations into Amazon’s enterprise practices.
The primary was opened in July 2019 to evaluate whether or not Amazon’s use of delicate information from unbiased retailers who promote on its market was in breach of EU competitors guidelines.
The second, in late 2020, focussed on the attainable preferential remedy of Amazon’s personal retail presents and people of market sellers that use Amazon’s logistics and supply companies.
“This investigation enhances at the moment’s determination of the Italian competitors authority which addresses Amazon’s conduct within the Italian logistics markets,” the Fee mentioned on Thursday.
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