European Commission accuses Amazon of abuse of dominant position

The European Commission announced this morning the opening of a file with Amazon for abuse of a dominant position.

The "preliminary conclusions" of the file opened by the Vice President and Head of Competition, Margrethe Vestager, in the summer of last year suggest that the giant "may have

against smaller suppliers" in an irregular way and who broke the rules, especially in France and Germany.

The European Commission has informed Amazon of its preliminary view that it "has

EU

by distorting competition in online retail markets."

The Commission maintains that the North American "consistently relies on non-public commercial data from independent sellers who operate in its market for the benefit of Amazon's own retail business, which competes directly with that third party."

Vestager also announced that his department has opened

formal

focused on antitrust rules "on the possible preferential treatment

own

and those of market sellers who use the logistics and delivery services" of the company.

"We must ensure that dual-role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition. Data on the activity of third-party sellers cannot be used for the benefit of Amazon when acting as a competitor. The conditions of competition in the Amazon's platform should also be fair. Its rules should not artificially favor Amazon's own retail offerings or take advantage of offers from retailers who use the company's logistics and delivery services.

, it is important that there is fair and undistorted access to consumers for all sellers ", explained the Danish commissioner.

Amazon discusses Vestager

"We disagree with the preliminary statements of the European Commission and will continue to do everything possible to ensure that it has the information necessary to have an accurate understanding of the facts. Amazon represents less than 1% of the global retail market, in all The countries in which we operate find larger retailers than us. No company cares more about small businesses or has done more to support them in the last two decades than Amazon.

, generating tens of billions of euros in revenue annually and employing thousands of people, "the company responded immediately in a statement.

It is not the first time that the Commission has opened an investigation into this type of behavior.

Amazon has a double role: it provides a platform, a market, for independent sellers to offer their products to citizens, but also at the same time sells their own products in that same market, competing with the small ones.

"As a marketplace service provider, Amazon has access to non-public business data from third-party sellers, such as the number of units of products ordered and shipped, their revenue, the number of visits to sellers' offers, data related to shipping , or consumer complaints about the products, including the activated guarantees ".

The suspicion of the European Commission, with the preliminary data of the investigation, is that Amazon makes an illegal use of this information and uses the data "to calibrate the retail offers and the strategic commercial decisions, to the detriment of the other sellers. This allows to Amazon to focus its offers on the best-selling products in all categories and adjust its offers in view of the non-public data of the sellers with whom it competes. "

Especially in France and Germany, its largest markets in Europe.

In addition, the Commission has opened a second antitrust investigation into the commercial practices of the Jezz Bezos giant, suspecting that certain practices could "artificially favor its own retail offerings and offers from market vendors who use the logistics and delivery services of In particular, the Commission will investigate whether the criteria established by Amazon to select the winner of the "

" [an option that facilitates immediate purchase and is vital for success on the platform, according to the investigation] and for Allowing sellers to offer products to Prime users, under Amazon's Prime loyalty program, leads to preferential treatment from Amazon's retail business or from sellers using Amazon's logistics and delivery services, "explains Competition in a release.

Since summer of last year

Brussels opened the in-depth investigation on Amazon in July 2019 and has now chosen to send a Statement of Objections, a step that is also formal, but as Vestager recalled, it does not prejudge the final result.

There is no fixed term to process these files, it can be months or years.

Now Amazon could consult the documents used by European technicians and present submissions.

Before Competition makes a decision, which can be to

, which in the worst case can amount to up to 10% of your sales and instructions to separate the business units.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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