(Portal) – The US antitrust agency plans to file a lawsuit against central online marketplace Amazon.com in the coming weeks, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing documents and people familiar with the matter.
The US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) main allegation is that Amazon is using its power to reward online retailers who use its logistics services and penalize those who don’t, the statement said Report.
The e-commerce giant did not immediately respond to a Portal request for comment. The FTC declined to comment.
The potential lawsuit adds to the agency’s most recent lawsuit against Amazon in recent weeks. FTC chief Lina Khan’s office worked on the complaint for several months and finalized important details, such as where to file the lawsuit, the report said.
The lawsuit would be one of several actions by President Joe Biden’s administration aimed at curbing the outsized market power of big tech companies as it seeks to increase competition to protect consumers.
Just last week, the FTC accused Amazon of having signed up millions of consumers for the paid subscription service Amazon Prime without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel.
The FTC is also investigating Amazon’s $1.7 billion deal for the iRobot “Roomba” vacuum cleaner.
According to the report, the authority’s antitrust proceedings against Amazon’s online marketplace have been in the works for a long time. Amazon received the FTC’s notice of the initial investigation in June 2019, Bloomberg reported, citing documents.
These documents contained questions about how the use of Amazon’s warehousing and delivery services affected third-party product placements on the online marketplace, including checkboxes on the website that give additional product prominence.
The FTC also obtained records of any agreements between Amazon and Apple, the report said. The two companies had struck a deal in 2018 to sell Apple iPhones, iPads and other devices on the Amazon marketplace.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Pooja Desai)