The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing a lawsuit against Amazon based on several acquisitions and numerous complaints from retail customers that the megacorporation interferes with business, arbitrarily applying its own rules to “punish” those who reject the expensive logistics of the company. or not overestimate.
On the preparation of relevant court documents, citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reports. The agency ensures that the case may be in court in the spring.
Since 2019, when the investigation began, dozens of statements have already accumulated in the department, which correct violations of antitrust policy by the company: deliberate overpricing, forcing the use of Amazon’s expensive internal logistics services, schemes of non-transparent Prime subscription, etc.
Adding to these concerns is the FTC investigating the legality of Amazon’s antitrust acquisition of $8.45 billion of MGM Studio, $3.5 billion of 1Life Healthcare and $1.65 billion of Roomba iRobot.
The deals could be included in the FTC’s complaint as evidence the company is doing all it can to become a monopoly in the e-commerce market, people familiar with the investigation said.
It should be noted that the acquisition of small businesses by megacorporations has increasingly attracted the antitrust department.
For example, the FTC investigated Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of the game market leaders, and its purchase of Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), Instagram, and WhatsApp (owned by Meta banned ).
At the same time, the court is increasingly siding with the companies: in all these cases, the complaints were rejected. Also: Reuters learned today that the court has denied the FTC’s request to bar Meta (known as an extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) from buying VR content producer Within Unlimited.
Mindful that current FTC chief Lina Khan made a name for herself with a groundbreaking 2017 legal document addressing possible violations of Amazon’s antitrust laws, corporate representatives see bias in her actions and a desire to sue the company. company at all costs.
Amazon has called for Khan to be removed from the corporation’s cases, but the FTC has dismissed the requests as “premature.”
Author:
Ekaterina Alipova
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
