Money
Amazon cops major penalty by Italian regulators
Major online retailer, Amazon has been fined $1.2 billion by regulators in Italy
Regulators in Italy say that Amazon has abused its market dominance by the way it promotes its own distribution service, Fulfilment by Amazon.
It’s the second time that regulators have taken on Amazon in a month – and they say that companies using Amazon as a selling platform are forced to use the FBA service in order to access key benefits such as selling products with prime delivery where no extra costs would be passed on to customers.
Amazon says that it “strongly disagreed” with the decision, and would appeal
Italian regulators ruled that Amazon put third-party sellers at a disadvantage by requiring use of its own service to access key benefits and events.
“Amazon has thus prevented third-party sellers from associating the Prime label with offers not managed with FBA,”
it said.
The regulator insisted that access to such functions is “crucial” for sellers to achieve success on the Amazon Marketplace.
Regulators also said it would impose corrective steps which will be subject to review by a monitoring trustee.
Amazon said in a statement that the fine was “unjustified and disproportionate”.
“We strongly disagree with the decision of the Italian Competition Authority and we will appeal,” said the company.
“Small and medium-sized businesses have multiple channels to sell their products both online and offline: Amazon is just one of those options.
The regulatory action is the second fine against the eCommerce giant in a matter of weeks after both the platform and tech giant Apple were fined $228 million for restricting Beats headphone sales, by limiting them to select retailers.
Amazon and Apple have confirmed that they plan to appeal against the fines.