Amazon offers concessions to avoid antitrust proceedings in Europe
Amazon has made the proposal to refrain from using seller data for its own retail business and increase the visibility of rival products on its platform, indicated the regulatory authorities of the European Union. This approach aims to avoid a possible fine and to close an investigation for non-compliance with competition rules.
The world’s largest e-commerce platform has also offered to treat sellers equally when ranking their offers for its website’s ‘buy box’, which generates the bulk of its sales. . Sellers will also be allowed to choose their own logistics and delivery service company instead of Amazon’s logistics services.
The European Commission said competitors and customers have until September 9 to react to Amazon’s proposal before deciding whether to accept the offer and end its two investigations.
Amazon, which faces a fine of up to 10% of its global revenue if found guilty of breaching European Union rules, said that while the company disagrees with many of the Commission’s findings, it has engaged constructively with the European competition watchdog.
In 2020, the European Commission accused Amazon of using its size, power and data to promote its own products and gain an unfair advantage over rival merchants selling on its online platform.
