US regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and attorney generals from 17 states are suing e-commerce giant Amazon, alleging the company has exploited its power to maintain monopolies.
The complaint filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington alleges that Amazon has unlawfully leveraged its market dominance, curbing any competition. Specifically, the tech giant is accused of stripping away Prime shipping benefits to sellers who offer lower-priced products on different platforms and burying product listings from sellers who are selling the products at a discounted price on other websites. Amazon faced similar allegations by the California Attorney General who filed a separate lawsuit last year.
"Our complaint lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies," FTC Chair Lina M. Khan wrote in a press release. "The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them. Today's lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition."
"The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law, and we look forward to making that case in court," Amazon penned in a statement Tuesday.
This is the second ongoing legal battle the FTC has with Amazon. In mid-June, the regulator announced it was suing the e-commerce company for allegedly deceiving customers into signing up for Amazon Prime and then making it arduous for those consumers to cancel the subscription.
Khan, who has been the FTC chair since 2021, has been a pioneer in tech antitrust, including penning a 2017 article in Yale Law Journal entitled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox." Since her appointment as FTC chair, Khan has attempted to crack down on antitrust in the tech sector.
Most notably, the FTC sued Microsoft in an attempt to temporarily block the company's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Microsoft came out victorious in the case, something Congress has criticized as the Microsoft case was one of a few high-profile cases the FTC has recently lost in court.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
