Attorney General Washington is suing Amazon for antitrust violation

Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine is suing Amazon for violating US antitrust laws. According to the Racine, the American company is abusing its monopoly position and is responsible for the artificially high prices on online stores.

By monitoring and maintaining the prices of products on US online marketplaces, the company was in violation of Washington DC law, according to the attorney general. “Amazon’s policy prevented competition, including online merchants, from competing on price. This way they could not gain market share and that also resulted in the slowing down of innovation, “said the man.

According to Racine, traders who sold their goods through Amazon’s online store were also obliged not to offer the same products cheaper anywhere else through a clause, including on their own website. According to the Attorney General, the company charged high commissions that kept prices on other online web shops generally artificially high, which meant that consumers had to pay more.

Since 2019, Amazon has stopped the mandatory pricing agreements it made with US merchants. But according to Racine Amazon secretly introduced new measures that would allow merchants to be removed from the platform if they offered their products cheaper elsewhere.

In 2017, the company stopped similar price fixing for books in Europe after the European Commission opened an investigation into the American company’s alleged abuse of power. The company has not yet responded to the US attorney general’s charges.