The consultation ends on 9 September 2022.
The European Commission is consulting on commitments offered by Amazon to address competition concerns over its use of non-public marketplace seller data and over a possible bias in granting sellers access to its Buy Box and its Prime programme.
In 2019, the Commission started investigating if Amazon's use of non-public data from independent retailers selling in its marketplace breached EU competition rules. In 2020, the Commission issued a Statement of Objections outlining its preliminary view that Amazon should not rely on independent sellers' business data to calibrate its retail decisions, as this distorts fair competition on its platform and prevents effective competition.
In parallel, the Commission opened a second investigation into:
The Commission’s preliminary finding was that the rules and criteria for the Buy Box and Prime unduly favour Amazon's own retail business, as well as marketplace sellers that use Amazon's logistics and delivery services. This bias may harm other marketplace sellers, their independent carriers, and other marketplaces, as well as consumers that may not be able to view the best deals.
To address the Commission's competition concerns in relation to both investigations, Amazon has offered the following commitments:
In relation to the Buy Box Amazon commits:
Lastly, regarding Prime, Amazon commits:
The commitments cover Amazon's current and future marketplaces in the EEA. They exclude Italy for the commitments related to Buy Box and Prime because the Italian competition authority has already imposed remedies on Amazon regarding the Italian market.
If agreed, the commitments will remain in force for five years. Their implementation will be monitored by a monitoring trustee who will report regularly to the Commission.
The consultation ends on 9 September 2022.
Published: 2022-07-18T18:00:00