Amazon reached an agreement with the European Commission which had alleged in its findings that Amazon’s reliance on marketplace sellers’ non-public business data to calibrate its retail decisions distorted fair competition on its platform and prevented effective competition.
The Commission said it had also preliminarily concluded that Amazon’s rules and criteria for the Buy Box and Prime unduly favored its own retail business as well as marketplace sellers who use Amazon’s logistics and delivery services.
The European Commission outlined the commitments Amazon made to address its concerns in a press release on Tuesday. The Commission said the commitments would remain in force for seven years in relation to Prime and the display of the second competing Buy Box offer, and five years for the remaining parts of the commitments. “Under supervision of the Commission, an independent trustee will be in charge of monitoring the implementation and compliance with the commitments.”
Amazon told CNN in a statement it was pleased to have resolved the EU matter but continued to disagree with some of the European Commission’s initial competitive concerns. “We have engaged constructively to ensure that we can continue to serve customers across Europe and support the 225,000 European small and medium sized businesses selling through our stores,” a company spokesperson told CNN.
According to CNBC, Amazon had faced a fine of $47 billion had it not reached an agreement with the European Commission. It said the changes apply only to the European Economic Area and the company will have until June 2023 to implement the changes, which will remain in place for five to seven years.
So sad that our U.S. Governernment does not care about that. The “S.2992 – American Innovation and Choice Online Act” has no movement since 03/02/2022. Just another lots of blablabla from our politicians. Meanwhile, Amazon and Co had plenty time to gather their lobby against this S.2992 bill.