The European Commission and Amazon reach an agreement to make third-party sellers more competitive

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president responsible for competition policy at the European Commission, shakes off two antitrust cases after reaching an agreement with Amazon. For its part, the US company will change some of its business practices so that external sellers are more competitive and thus avoid possible fines for abuse of dominant position.

The European Commission had two investigations open on Amazon. The first, started in July 2019, concerned the company’s use of the non-public data of third-party sellers using its marketplace. The second was launched in November 2020 with the aim of evaluating whether the criteria that Amazon established to select the winner of the Buy Box and to allow sellers to offer products under its Prime program, led to preferential treatment. from Amazon’s retail activities or from sellers using its fulfillment services. For Brussels there were two cases of abuse of a dominant position.

To clear up the European Commission’s competition concerns in connection with both investigations, Amazon offered a series of commitments that the executive tested while consulting with interested third parties. This feedback modified Amazon’s initial proposal, which broadly acquires the following commitments:

• Not to use non-public data relating to, or derived from, the activities of independent sellers in your marketplace for your retail activity, and not to use this data for the purpose of selling branded goods and white goods.
• Treat all sellers equally when ranking bids for Buy Box Winner selection, and display a second competing bid to the Buy Box Winner if there is a second bid from a different seller that is sufficiently differentiated from the Buy Box Winner. first.
• Establish non-discriminatory conditions and criteria for the qualification of its sellers and offers to Prime, and allow Prime sellers to freely choose any carrier for their logistics and delivery services and negotiate the conditions directly with the carrier of their choice.

“The Commission has found that Amazon’s final commitments will ensure that Amazon does not use marketplace seller data for its own retail operations and that it grants non-discriminatory access to Buy Box and Prime,” the European Commission said in a statement. “The Commission has decided to make them legally binding on Amazon. The commitments offered cover all of Amazon’s current and future markets in the European Economic Area.”